The Diary of a Young Girl (2 page)

E.S. talks so much it isn’t funny. She’s always touching your hair or fiddling with your buttons when she asks you something. They say she can’t stand me, but I don’t care, since I don’t like her much either.

Henny Mets is a nice girl with a cheerful disposition, except that she talks in a loud voice and is really childish when we’re playing outdoors. Unfortunately, Henny has a girlfriend named Beppy who’s a bad influence on her because she’s dirty and vulgar.

J.R.—I could write a whole book about her. J. is a detestable, sneaky, stuck-up, two-faced gossip who thinks
she’s so grown-up. She’s really got Jacque under her spell, and that’s a shame. J. is easily offended, bursts into tears at the slightest thing and, to top it all off, is a terrible show-off. Miss J. always has to be right. She’s very rich, and has a closet full of the most adorable dresses that are way too old for her. She thinks she’s gorgeous, but she’s not. J. and I can’t stand each other.

Ilse Wagner is a nice girl with a cheerful disposition, but she’s extremely finicky and can spend hours moaning and groaning about something. Ilse likes me a lot. She’s very smart, but lazy.

Hanneli Goslar, or Lies as she’s called at school, is a bit on the strange side. She’s usually shy—outspoken at home, but reserved around other people. She blabs whatever you tell her to her mother. But she says what she thinks, and lately I’ve come to appreciate her a great deal.

Nannie van Praag-Sigaar is small, funny and sensible. I think she’s nice. She’s pretty smart. There isn’t much else you can say about Nannie.

Eefje de Jong is, in my opinion, terrific. Though she’s only twelve, she’s quite the lady. She acts as if I were a baby. She’s also very helpful, and I like her.

G.Z. is the prettiest girl in our class. She has a nice face, but is kind of dumb. I think they’re going to hold her back a year, but of course I haven’t told her that.

C
OMMENT ADDED BY
A
NNE AT A LATER DATE:

To my great surprise, G.Z. wasn’t held back a year after all
.

And sitting next to G.Z. is the last of us twelve girls, me.

There’s a lot to be said about the boys, or maybe not so much after all.

Maurice Coster is one of my many admirers, but pretty much of a pest.

Sallie Springer has a filthy mind, and rumor has it that he’s gone all the way. Still, I think he’s terrific, because he’s very funny.

Emiel Bonewit is G.Z.’s admirer, but she doesn’t care. He’s pretty boring.

Rob Cohen used to be in love with me too, but I can’t stand him anymore. He’s an obnoxious, two-faced, lying, sniveling little goof who has an awfully high opinion of himself.

Max van de Velde is a farm boy from Medemblik, but a decent sort, as Margot would say.

Herman Koopman also has a filthy mind, just like Jopie de Beer, who’s a terrible flirt and absolutely girl-crazy.

Leo Blom is Jopie de Beer’s best friend, but has been ruined by his dirty mind.

Albert de Mesquita came from the Montessori School and skipped a grade. He’s really smart.

Leo Slager came from the same school, but isn’t as smart.

Ru Stoppelmon is a short, goofy boy from Almelo who transferred to this school in the middle of the year.

C.N. does whatever he’s not supposed to.

Jacques Kocernoot sits behind us, next to C., and we (G. and I) laugh ourselves silly.

Harry Schaap is the most decent boy in our class. He’s nice.

Werner Joseph is nice too, but all the changes taking place lately have made him too quiet, so he seems boring.

Sam Salomon is one of those tough guys from across the tracks. A real brat. (Admirer!)

Appie Riem is pretty Orthodox, but a brat too.

S
ATURDAY
, J
UNE
20, 1942

Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I’ve never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. I feel like writing, and I have an even greater need to get all kinds of things off my chest.

“Paper has more patience than people.” I thought of this saying on one of those days when I was feeling a little depressed and was sitting at home with my chin in my hands, bored and listless, wondering whether to stay in or go out. I finally stayed where I was, brooding. Yes, paper
does
have more patience, and since I’m not planning to let anyone else read this stiff-backed notebook grandly referred to as a “diary,” unless I should ever find a real friend, it probably won’t make a bit of difference.

Now I’m back to the point that prompted me to keep a diary in the first place: I don’t have a friend.

Let me put it more clearly, since no one will believe that a thirteen-year-old girl is completely alone in the world. And I’m not. I have loving parents and a sixteen-year-old sister, and there are about thirty people I can call friends. I have a throng of admirers who can’t keep their adoring eyes off me and who sometimes have to resort to using a broken pocket mirror to try and catch a glimpse of me in the classroom. I have a family, loving aunts and a good home. No, on the surface I seem to have everything, except my one true friend. All I think about when I’m with friends is having a good time. I can’t bring myself to talk about anything but ordinary everyday things. We don’t seem to be able to get any closer, and that’s the problem. Maybe it’s my fault that we don’t confide in each other. In any case, that’s just how things are, and
unfortunately they’re not liable to change. This is why I’ve started the diary.

To enhance the image of this long-awaited friend in my imagination, I don’t want to jot down the facts in this diary the way most people would do, but I want the diary to be my friend, and I’m going to call this friend
Kitty
.

Since no one would understand a word of my stories to Kitty if I were to plunge right in, I’d better provide a brief sketch of my life, much as I dislike doing so.

My father, the most adorable father I’ve ever seen, didn’t marry my mother until he was thirty-six and she was twenty-five. My sister Margot was born in Frankfurt am Main in Germany in 1926. I was born on June 12, 1929. I lived in Frankfurt until I was four. Because we’re Jewish, my father immigrated to Holland in 1933, when he became the Managing Director of the Dutch Opekta Company, which manufactures products used in making jam. My mother, Edith Holländer Frank, went with him to Holland in September, while Margot and I were sent to Aachen to stay with our grandmother. Margot went to Holland in December, and I followed in February, when I was plunked down on the table as a birthday present for Margot.

I started right away at the Montessori nursery school. I stayed there until I was six, at which time I started first grade. In sixth grade my teacher was Mrs. Kuperus, the principal. At the end of the year we were both in tears as we said a heartbreaking farewell, because I’d been accepted at the Jewish Lyceum, where Margot also went to school.

Our lives were not without anxiety, since our relatives in Germany were suffering under Hitler’s anti-Jewish laws. After the pogroms in 1938 my two uncles (my mother’s brothers) fled Germany, finding safe refuge in
North America. My elderly grandmother came to live with us. She was seventy-three years old at the time.

After May 1940 the good times were few and far between: first there was the war, then the capitulation and then the arrival of the Germans, which is when the trouble started for the Jews. Our freedom was severely restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees: Jews were required to wear a yellow star; Jews were required to turn in their bicycles; Jews were forbidden to use streetcars; Jews were forbidden to ride in cars, even their own; Jews were required to do their shopping between 3 and 5
P.M
.; Jews were required to frequent only Jewish-owned barbershops and beauty parlors; Jews were forbidden to be out on the streets between 8
P.M
. and 6
A.M
.; Jews were forbidden to go to theaters, movies or any other forms of entertainment; Jews were forbidden to use swimming pools, tennis courts, hockey fields or any other athletic fields; Jews were forbidden to go rowing; Jews were forbidden to take part in any athletic activity in public; Jews were forbidden to sit in their gardens or those of their friends after 8
P.M
.; Jews were forbidden to visit Christians in their homes; Jews were required to attend Jewish schools, etc. You couldn’t do this and you couldn’t do that, but life went on. Jacque always said to me, “I don’t dare do anything anymore, ’cause I’m afraid it’s not allowed.”

In the summer of 1941 Grandma got sick and had to have an operation, so my birthday passed with little celebration. In the summer of 1940 we didn’t do much for my birthday either, since the fighting had just ended in Holland. Grandma died in January 1942. No one knows how often I think of her and still love her. This birthday celebration in 1942 was intended to make up for the others, and Grandma’s candle was lit along with the rest.

The four of us are still doing well, and that brings me to the present date of June 20, 1942, and the solemn dedication of my diary.

S
ATURDAY
, J
UNE
20, 1942

Dearest Kitty!

Let me get started right away; it’s nice and quiet now. Father and Mother are out and Margot has gone to play Ping-Pong with some other young people at her friend Trees’s. I’ve been playing a lot of Ping-Pong myself lately. So much that five of us girls have formed a club. It’s called “The Little Dipper Minus Two.” A really silly name, but it’s based on a mistake. We wanted to give our club a special name; and because there were five of us, we came up with the idea of the Little Dipper. We thought it consisted of five stars, but we turned out to be wrong. It has seven, like the Big Dipper, which explains the “Minus Two.” Ilse Wagner has a Ping-Pong set, and the Wagners let us play in their big dining room whenever we want. Since we five Ping-Pong players like ice cream, especially in the summer, and since you get hot playing Ping-Pong, our games usually end with a visit to the nearest icecream parlor that allows Jews: either Oasis or Delphi. We’ve long since stopped hunting around for our purses or money—most of the time it’s so busy in Oasis that we manage to find a few generous young men of our acquaintance or an admirer to offer us more ice cream than we could eat in a week.

You’re probably a little surprised to hear me talking about admirers at such a tender age. Unfortunately, or not, as the case may be, this vice seems to be rampant at our school. As soon as a boy asks if he can bicycle home with me and we get to talking, nine times out of ten I can be sure he’ll become enamored on the spot and won’t let
me out of his sight for a second. His ardor eventually cools, especially since I ignore his passionate glances and pedal blithely on my way. If it gets so bad that they start rambling on about “asking Father’s permission,” I swerve slightly on my bike, my schoolbag falls, and the young man feels obliged to get off his bike and hand it to me, by which time I’ve switched the conversation to another topic. These are the most innocent types. Of course, there are those who blow you kisses or try to take hold of your arm, but they’re definitely knocking on the wrong door. I get off my bike and either refuse to make further use of their company or act as if I’m insulted and tell them in no uncertain terms to go on home without me.

There you are. We’ve now laid the basis for our friendship. Until tomorrow.

Yours, Anne

S
UNDAY
, J
UNE
21, 1942

Dearest Kitty
,

Our entire class is quaking in its boots. The reason, of course, is the upcoming meeting in which the teachers decide who’ll be promoted to the next grade and who’ll be kept back. Half the class is making bets. G.Z. and I laugh ourselves sick at the two boys behind us, C.N. and Jacques Kocernoot, who have staked their entire vacation savings on their bet. From morning to night, it’s “You’re going to pass,” “No, I’m not,” “Yes, you are,” “No, I’m not.” Even G.’s pleading glances and my angry outbursts can’t calm them down. If you ask me, there are so many dummies that about a quarter of the class should be kept back, but teachers are the most unpredictable creatures on earth. Maybe this time they’ll be unpredictable in the right direction for a change.

I’m not so worried about my girlfriends and myself.
We’ll make it. The only subject I’m not sure about is math. Anyway, all we can do is wait. Until then, we keep telling each other not to lose heart.

I get along pretty well with all my teachers. There are nine of them, seven men and two women. Mr. Keesing, the old fogey who teaches math, was mad at me for the longest time because I talked so much. After several warnings, he assigned me extra homework. An essay on the subject “A Chatterbox.” A chatterbox, what can you write about that? I’d worry about that later, I decided. I jotted down the assignment in my notebook, tucked it in my bag and tried to keep quiet.

That evening, after I’d finished the rest of my homework, the note about the essay caught my eye. I began thinking about the subject while chewing the tip of my fountain pen. Anyone could ramble on and leave big spaces between the words, but the trick was to come up with convincing arguments to prove the necessity of talking. I thought and thought, and suddenly I had an idea. I wrote the three pages Mr. Keesing had assigned me and was satisfied. I argued that talking is a female trait and that I would do my best to keep it under control, but that I would never be able to break myself of the habit, since my mother talked as much as I did, if not more, and that there’s not much you can do about inherited traits.

Mr. Keesing had a good laugh at my arguments, but when I proceeded to talk my way through the next class, he assigned me a second essay. This time it was supposed to be on “An Incorrigible Chatterbox.” I handed it in, and Mr. Keesing had nothing to complain about for two whole classes. However, during the third class he’d finally had enough. “Anne Frank, as punishment for talking in class, write an essay entitled ‘“Quack, Quack, Quack,” Said Mistress Chatterback.’”