Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl [An Excerpt]
Saturday, June 20, 1942
My father was 36 when he married my mother, who was then 25. My sister Margot was born in 1926. I
followed on June 12, 1929, and, as we are Jewish, we emigrated to Holland in 1933, where my father
was appointed Managing Director of Travies NV. This firm is in close contact with the firm Kolen and
Company in the same building, of which my father is a partner.
The rest of our family, however, felt the full impact of Hitler’s snit-Semitic laws, so life was filled with
anxiety. In 1938 after the pograms
1
, my two uncles escaped to the USA. My old grandmother then came
to us, she was then 73. After May 1940, good times rapidly fled: first the war, then the surrender,
followed by the arrival of the Germans, which is when the suffering of the Jews really began.
Anti-Jewish decrees
2
followed each other in quick succession. Jews must wear a yellow star. Jews must
hand in their bicycles. Jews are banned from trains and are forbidden to drive. Jews are only allowed to
do their shopping between three and five o’clock, and then only in shops which bear the placard “Jewish
Shop.” Jews must be indoors by eight o’clock and cannot even sit in their own gardens after that hour.
Jews are forbidden to visit theatres and other places of entertainment. Jews may not take part in public
sports, swimming baths, tennis courts, hockey fields, and other sports grounds are all prohibited to
them. Jews may not visit Christians. Jews must go to Jewish schools, and many more similar restrictions.
So we could not do this and we were forbidden to do that. Jopie
3
used to say to me, “You’re scared to
do anything because you fear it may be forbidden.” Our freedom was strictly limited. Yet things were
still bearable.
Thursday, November 19, 1942
Countless friends and acquaintances have gone on to a horrible fate. Evening after evening the green
and gray lorries
4
roll past. The Germans ring at every front door to inquire if there are any Jews living in
the house. If there are, then the whole family has to go at once. If they don’t find any, they go on to the
next house. No one has a chance of evading them unless one goes into hiding. Often they go around us
with lists, and only ring when they know they can get a good haul. Sometimes they let the off for cash,
so much per head. It seems like the slave hunts of olden times. But it’s certainly no joke; it’s much too
tragic for that. In the evenings when it’s dark, I often see rows of good innocent people, accompanied by
crying children walking on and on…bullied and knocked about until they almost drop. No one is spared –
old people, babies, expectant mothers, the sick – each and all join in the march of death.
How fortunate we are here. So well cared for and undisturbed. We wouldn’t have to worry about all
this misery were it not that we are anxious for all those dear to us that we can no longer help.
I feel wicked sleeping in a warm bed, while my dearest friends have been knocked down or have fallen
into a gutter somewhere out in the cold night. I get very frightened when I think of friends who have
been delivered into the hands of the cruelest brutes that walk the earth. And all because they are Jews!
1
organized persecutions of Jews
2
laws
3
Anne’s best friend
4
trucks
