It's been a pretty typical week with posts about Dancing With The Stars and American Idol... and here we make a pretty odd transition to a book post about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust...
... and arguably (or not!) the most famous memoirs of all time, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. If you keep track of what I am reading via my sidebar icon, I am sure a few of you thought this was a curious book choice. But the reason I read it lies in the name of the last book I read... Amsterdam. While I am sure I knew it at some point (again my mind tends to be cluttered with stuff like who danced a samba on DWTS two seasons ago or the lyrics to a one-hit wonder from the 1980s), it wasn't until I started researching our upcoming Europe trip that I recalled that the Franks lived, went into hiding, and were ultimately captured by the Nazis in Amsterdam. The Anne Frank House is the most visited destination in the city and it is certainly at the top of our list.
Like many of you I am sure, I first read a version of the diary in school. But it is certainly worth a re-read. As an "adult" I have a better knowledge of WWII and the Holocaust... and likewise, more definitive versions of the diary have been published. I'm guessing the "school" versions of book likely do not include Anne's budding sexuality or, even a surprise to me, a very short discussion of the female anatomy.
While the memoir would have been amazing just from a historical angel , this is still a very personal story of a young girl (written from age 13 thru 15) who, under extraordinary conditions, still has many of the same struggles as any teenager... tenuous relations with her parents (particularly her mother) and sister, a budding romance in the secret annex, and wondering what life would bring her.
While we know how it all ends (Anne died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen, just a month prior to the concentration camp's liberation), there is still considerable tension in the story as the Annex residents dodge some close-calls... and as the pages dwindled, there was still this foreboding sense that it will just end.
Anne writes "I still believe in spite of everything that people are really good at heart" ... while heartbreaking, also quite an inspiration... the diary is a testament to the triumph of the human spirit... with Anne's words and story living on and on...
2008 1-2-3-4-5 Reading Challenge: + 341 Pages (Total: 3,474 pages - Finished: 4/14/2008)
-179 pages ahead of pace (-200 change in pace since last book).
The house is definitely worth a visit. My son, 6 years old at the time, waited with us in a very long line up and pronounced the house worth the wait after our visit.
Posted by: Gail | Thursday, May 08, 2008 at 07:22 PM
You definitely have to go there and check it out. That way you can tell us if all the things David Sedaris wrote about it are true!(Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim, chapter Posession) I used to think about war and genocide and the terrible ways men treat other men when I thought about this book, now I think about knocking down walls and redoing counter tops.
Have a great trip!
Posted by: Scot | Thursday, May 08, 2008 at 10:38 PM