The Diary of a Young Girl
The
Diary of a Young Girl, also
known as The Diary of Anne Frank, is a book of the writings from
the Dutch language
diary kept by Anne
Frank while she was in hiding for two
years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944, and Anne Frank died of
typhus in the Bergen-Belsen
concentration camp in 1945. The diary was retrieved by
Miep
Gies, who gave it to Anne's father, Otto
Frank, the family's only known survivor,
just after the war was over. The diary has since been published in more than 60
languages.
First
published under the title Het Achterhuis. Dagboekbrieven 14 Juni 1942 – 1
Augustus 1944 (The Annex: Diary Notes 14 June 1942 – 1 August 1944)
by Contact Publishing in Amsterdam in 1947, the diary received widespread
critical and popular attention on the appearance of its English language
translation Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Doubleday & Company (United States) and Vallentine Mitchell
(United Kingdom) in 1952. Its popularity inspired the 1955 play The Diary of Anne
Frank by the screenwriters Frances
Goodrich and Albert
Hackett, which they adapted for the screen
for the 1959 movie
version. The book is included in several
lists of the top books of the 20th century.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
The
copyright of the Dutch version of the diary, published in 1947,
expired on 1 January 2016, 70 years after the author's death as a result of a
general rule in copyright law of the
European Union. Following this, the original Dutch
version was made available online.[7][8]
Background
During
the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, Anne Frank received a blank diary as one of her presents
on June 12, 1942, her 13th birthday.[9][10] According to the Anne
Frank House, the red, checkered autograph
book which Anne used as her diary was
actually not a surprise, since she had chosen it the day before with her father
when browsing a bookstore near her home.[10] She began to write in it two days later.[11][12]
On
July 5, 1942, Anne's older sister Margot received an official summons to report to a Nazi work camp
in Germany, and on July 6, Margot and Anne went into hiding with their parents Otto and Edith. They were later joined by Hermann
van Pels, Otto's business partner, including
his wife Auguste
and their teenage son Peter.[13] Their hiding place was in the sealed-off upper rooms of the
annex at the back of Otto's company building in Amsterdam.[13][14] Otto Frank started his business, named Opekta, in 1933. He
was licensed to manufacture and sell pectin, a substance used to make jam. He stopped running his
business while in hiding. But once he returned, he found his employees running
it. The rooms that everyone hid in were concealed behind a movable
bookcase in the same building as Opekta.
Mrs. van Pels's dentist, Fritz
Pfeffer, joined them four months later. In
the published version, names were changed: The van Pelses are known as the Van
Daans, and Fritz Pfeffer as Albert Dussel. With the assistance of a group of
Otto Frank's trusted colleagues, they remained hidden for two years and one
month.[15][16]
In
August 1944, they were discovered and deported to Nazi concentration camps.
They were long thought to have been betrayed, although there are indications
that their discovery may have been accidental, that the police raid had
actually targeted "ration fraud".[17] Of the eight people, only Otto Frank survived the war. Anne
was 15 years old when she died in Bergen-Belsen. The exact date of her death is unknown, and has long been
believed to be in late February or early March, a few weeks before the
prisoners were liberated by British troops on April 15, 1945. [18]
In
the manuscript, her original diaries are written over three extant volumes. The
first volume (the red-and-white checkered autograph book) covers the period
between June 14 and December 5, 1942. Since the second surviving volume (a
school exercise book) begins on December 22, 1943, and ends on April 17, 1944,
it is assumed that the original volume or volumes between December 1942 and
December 1943 were lost - presumably after the arrest, when the hiding place
was emptied on Nazi instructions. However, this missing period is covered in
the version Anne rewrote for preservation. The third existing volume (which was
also a school exercise book) contains entries from April 17 to August 1, 1944,
when Anne wrote for the last time three days before her arrest.[19]:2
The
manuscript, written on loose sheets of paper, was found strewn on the floor of
the hiding place by Miep Gies
and Bep Voskuijl
after the family's arrest,[20] but before their rooms were ransacked by the Dutch police
and the Gestapo. They were kept safe, and given to Otto Frank after the war,
with the original notes, when Anne's death was confirmed in the spring of 1945.[21]
Format
The
diary is not written in the classic forms of "Dear Diary" or as letters
to oneself; Anne calls her diary "Kitty", so almost all of the
letters are written to Kitty. Anne used the above-mentioned names for her
annex-mates in the first volume, from September 25, 1942 until November 13,
1942, when the first notebook ends.[22] It is believed that these names were taken from characters
found in a series of popular Dutch books written by Cissy van Marxveldt.[22]
Anne's
already budding literary ambitions were galvanized on 29 March 1944 when she heard
a London radio broadcast made by the exiled Dutch Minister for Education, Art,
and Science, Gerrit Bolkestein,[20] calling for the preservation of "ordinary documents—a
diary, letters ... simple everyday material" to create an archive for
posterity as testimony to the suffering of civilians during the Nazi
occupation. On May 20, 1944, she notes that she started re-drafting her diary
with future readers in mind.[23] She expanded entries and standardized them by addressing
all of them to Kitty, clarified situations, prepared a list of pseudonyms, and
cut scenes she thought would be of little interest or too intimate for general
consumption. By the time she started the second existing volume, she was
writing only to Kitty.
Dear Kitty
There
has been much conjecture about the identity or inspiration of Kitty, who in
Anne's revised manuscript is the sole recipient of her letters. In 1996, the
critic Sietse van der Hoek wrote that the name referred to Kitty Egyedi, a
prewar friend of Anne's. Van der Hoek may have been informed by the publication
A Tribute to Anne Frank (1970), prepared by the Anne Frank Foundation,
which assumed a factual basis for the character in its preface by the
then-chairman of the Foundation, Henri
van Praag, and accentuated this with the
inclusion of a group photograph that singles out Anne, Sanne Ledermann, Hanneli
Goslar, and Kitty Egyedi. Anne does not
mention Kitty Egyedi in any of her writings (in fact, the only other girl
mentioned in her diary from the often reproduced photo, other than Goslar and
Ledermann, is Mary Bos, whose drawings Anne dreamed about in 1944) and the only
comparable example of Anne's writing unposted letters to a real friend are two
farewell letters to Jacqueline van Maarsen, from September 1942.[24]
Theodor
Holman wrote in reply to Sietse van der Hoek that the diary entry for 28
September 1942 proved conclusively the character's fictional origin.[citation needed]
Jacqueline van Maarsen agreed,[citation needed] but Otto
Frank assumed his daughter had her real acquaintance in mind when she wrote to
someone of the same name.[citation needed] However,
Kitty Egyedi said in an interview that she was flattered by the assumption, but
doubted the diary was addressed to her:
Kitty
became so idealized and started to lead her own life in the diary that it
ceases to matter who is meant by 'Kitty'. The name ... is not meant to be me.
— Kitty Egyedi[25]
Synopsis
Anne
had expressed the desire in the rewritten introduction of her diary for one
person that she could call her truest friend, that is, a person to whom she
could confide her deepest thoughts and feelings. She observed that she had many
"friends" and equally many admirers, but (by her own definition) no
true, dear friend with whom she could share her innermost thoughts. She
originally thought her girl friend Jacque van Maarsen would be this person, but
that was only partially successful. In an early diary passage, she remarks that
she is not in love with Helmut "Hello" Silberberg, her suitor at that
time, but considered that he might become a true friend. In hiding, she
invested much time and effort into her budding romance with Peter van Pels, thinking
he might evolve into that one, true friend, but that was eventually a
disappointment to her in some ways, also, though she still cared for him very
much. Ultimately, it was only to Kitty that she entrusted her innermost
thoughts.
In
her diary, Anne wrote of her very close relationship with her father, lack of
daughterly love for her mother (with whom she felt she had nothing in common),
and admiration for her sister's intelligence and sweet nature. She did not like
the others much initially, particularly Auguste van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer (the
latter shared her room). She was at first unimpressed by the quiet Peter; she
herself was something of a self-admitted chatterbox (a source of irritation to
some of the others). As time went on, however, she and Peter became very close,
though she remained uncertain in what direction their relationship would
develop.
Editorial history
There
are two versions of the diary written by Anne Frank. She wrote the first
version in a designated diary and two notebooks (version A), but rewrote it
(version B) in 1944 after hearing on the radio that war-time diaries were to be
collected to document the war period. Version B was written on loose paper, and
is not identical to Version A, as parts were added and others omitted.[26]
Publication in Dutch
The
first transcription of Anne's diary was in German, made by Otto Frank for his
friends and relatives in Switzerland, who convinced him to send it for publication.[27] The second, a composition of Anne Frank's versions A and B
as well as excerpts from her essays became the first draft submitted for
publication, with an epilogue written by a family friend explaining the fate of
its author. In the spring of 1946, it came to the attention of Dr. Jan Romein
and his wife Annie Romein-Verschoor, two Dutch historians. They were so moved
by it that Anne Romein made unsuccessful attempts to find a publisher, which
led Romein to write an article for the newspaper Het
Parool:[28]
This
apparently inconsequential diary by a child, this "de
profundis" stammered out in a child's
voice, embodies all the hideousness of fascism, more so than all the evidence
of Nuremberg
put together.
— Jan Romein in his
article "Children's Voice" on Het Parool, April 3, 1946.[28]
This
caught the interest of Contact Publishing in Amsterdam, who approached Otto
Frank to submit a Dutch draft of the manuscript for their consideration. They
offered to publish, but advised Otto Frank that Anne's candor about her
emerging sexuality might offend certain conservative quarters, and suggested
cuts. Further entries were also deleted. The diary – which was a combination of
version A and version B – was published under the name Het Achterhuis.
Dagbrieven van 14 juni 1942 tot 1 augustus 1944 (The Secret Annex. Diary
Letters from June 14, 1942 to August 1, 1944) on June 25, 1947.[28] Otto Frank later discussed this moment, "If she had
been here, Anne would have been so proud."[28] The book sold well; the 3000 copies of the first edition
were soon sold out, and in 1950 a sixth edition was published.
In
1986, a critical edition
appeared, incorporating versions A and B, and based on the findings of the
Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation into challenges to the
diary's authenticity.
This was published in three volumes with a total of 714 pages.[29]
Publication in English
In
1950, the Dutch translator Rosey
E. Pool made a first translation of the
Diary, which was never published.[30] At the end of 1950, another translator was found to produce
an English-language version. Barbara Mooyaart-Doubleday was contracted by Vallentine Mitchell
in England, and by the end of the following year, her translation was submitted,
now including the deleted passages at Otto Frank's request. As well, Judith
Jones, while working for the publisher Doubleday,
read and recommended the Diary, pulling it out of the rejection pile.[31] Jones recalled that she came across Frank's work in a slush
pile of material that had been rejected by other publishers; she was struck by
a photograph of the girl on the cover of an advance copy of the French edition.
"I read it all day", she noted. "When my boss returned, I told
him, 'We have to publish this book.' He said, 'What? That book by that
kid?'" She brought the diary to the attention of Doubleday's New York
office. "I made the book quite important because I was so taken with it,
and I felt it would have a real market in America. It's one of those seminal
books that will never be forgotten", Jones said.[32] The book appeared in the United States and in the United
Kingdom in 1952, becoming a best-seller. The introduction to the English
publication was written by Eleanor
Roosevelt.
In
1989, an English edition of this appeared under the title of The Diary of Anne
Frank: The Revised Critical Edition, including Mooyaart-Doubleday's
translation and Anne Frank's versions A and B, based on the Dutch critical
version of 1986.[33][34] A new translation by Susan Massotty, based on the original
texts, was published in 1995.
Other languages
The
work was translated in 1950 into German and French, before it appeared in 1952
in the US in English.[35] The critical version was also translated into Chinese.[36] As of 2019, the website of the Anne Frank House records
translations in over 70 languages.[37]
Theatrical and film adaptations
A
play by Albert
Hackett and Frances
Goodrich based on the diary won the Pulitzer
Prize for 1955. A subsequent film version earned Shelley
Winters an Academy
Award for her performance. Winters
donated her Oscar to the Anne
Frank House in Amsterdam.[38]
The
first major adaptation to quote literal passages from the diary was 2014's Anne, authorised and initiated by the Anne Frank Foundation in
Basel. After a two-year continuous run at the purpose-built Theater Amsterdam
in the Netherlands, the play had productions in Germany[39]
and Israel.
Other
adaptations of the diary include a version by Wendy
Kesselman from 1997,.[40]
Alix Sobler's 2014 The Secret Annex imagined the fate of the diary in a
world in which Anne Frank survives the Holocaust.[41]
The
first German film version of the diary, written by Fred Breinersdorfer,
was released by NBCUniversal
in 2016. The film is derived from the 2014 Dutch stage
production.
New editions
In
May 2018, Frank van Vree, the director of the Niod Institute along with others,
discovered some unseen excerpts from the diary that Anne had previously covered
up with a piece of brown paper. The excerpts discuss sexuality, prostitution,
and also include jokes Anne herself described as "dirty" that she
heard from the other residents of the Secret
Annex and elsewhere. Van Vree said
"anyone who reads the passages that have now been discovered will be
unable to suppress a smile", before adding, "the 'dirty' jokes are
classics among growing children. They make it clear that Anne, with all her
gifts, was above all an ordinary girl".[42]
Reception
In
the 1960s, Otto Frank recalled his feelings when reading the diary for the
first time, "For me, it was a revelation. There, was revealed a completely
different Anne to the child that I had lost. I had no idea of the depths of her
thoughts and feelings."[27] Michael Berenbaum, former director of the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum, wrote,
"Precocious in style and insight, it traces her emotional growth amid
adversity. In it, she wrote, 'In spite of everything, I still believe that
people are really good at heart.'"[27]
In
2009, the notebooks of the diary were submitted by the Netherlands and included
in UNESCO's Memory of the World
Register.[43]
Vandalism
It
was reported around the world that in February 2014, 265 copies of the Frank
diary and other material related to the
Holocaust were found to be vandalized in 31
public libraries in Tokyo, Japan.[44][45] The Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed "its shock and deep concern"[46] and, in response, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide
Suga called the vandalism "shameful."
Israel donated 300 copies of Anne Frank's diary to replace the vandalized
copies.[47] An anonymous donor under the name of 'Chiune
Sugihara' donated two boxes of books pertaining to the Holocaust to
the Tokyo central library.[48] After media attention had subsided, police arrested an
unemployed man in March.[49] In June, prosecutors decided not to indict the suspect
after he was found to be mentally incompetent.[50] Tokyo librarians have reported that Nazi-related books such
as the diary and Man's Search for Meaning attract people with mental disorder and are subject to
occasional vandalism.[51][better source needed]
Bans
In
2009, the armed group Hezbollah
called to ban the book in Lebanese schools, arguing that the text was an
apology to Jews, Zionism and Israel.[52]
In
2010, the Culpeper County, Virginia school system banned the 50th Anniversary "Definitive
Edition" of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, due to
"complaints about its sexual content and homosexual themes."[53] This version "includes passages previously excluded
from the widely read original edition.... Some of the extra passages detail her
emerging sexual desires; others include unflattering descriptions of her mother
and other people living together."[54] After consideration, it was decided a copy of the newer
version would remain in the library and classes would revert to using the older
version.
In
2013, a similar controversy arose in a 7th grade setting in Northville, Michigan, focusing on explicit passages about sexuality.[55] The mother behind the formal complaint referred to portions
of the book as "pretty pornographic."[56]
The
American Library Association stated that there have been six challenges to the book in
the United States since it started keeping records on bans and challenges in
1990, and that "[m]ost of the concerns were about sexually explicit
material".[54]
Authenticity
As
reported in The New York Times in 2015, "When Otto Frank first published his
daughter's red-checked diary and notebooks, he wrote a prologue assuring
readers that the book mostly contained her words".[57] Although many Holocaust
deniers, such as Robert
Faurisson, have claimed that Anne Frank's
diary was fabricated,[58][59] critical and forensic studies of the text and the original manuscript have supported its authenticity.[60]
The
Netherlands
Institute for War Documentation
commissioned a forensic study of the manuscripts after the death of Otto Frank
in 1980. The material composition of the original notebooks and ink, and the
handwriting found within them and the loose version were extensively examined.
In 1986, the results were published: The handwriting attributed to Anne Frank
was positively matched with contemporary samples of Anne Frank's handwriting,
and the paper, ink, and glue found in the diaries and loose papers were
consistent with materials available in Amsterdam during the period in which the
diary was written.[60]
The
survey of her manuscripts compared an unabridged transcription of Anne Frank's
original notebooks with the entries she expanded and clarified on loose paper
in a rewritten form and the final edit as it was prepared for the English
translation. The investigation revealed that all of the entries in the
published version were accurate transcriptions of manuscript entries in Anne
Frank's handwriting, and that they represented approximately a third of the
material collected for the initial publication. The magnitude of edits to the
text is comparable to other historical diaries such as those of Katherine Mansfield,
Anaïs
Nin and Leo
Tolstoy in that the authors revised their
diaries after the initial draft, and the material was posthumously edited into
a publishable manuscript by their respective executors, only to be superseded
in later decades by unexpurgated editions prepared by scholars.[61]
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