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Diary of Anne Frank, a la Shmoop. The Diary of Anne Frank, or as it was originally
published, Diary of a Young Girl...
...is, in some ways, much like any young girl's diary.
In it, she vents about her mother.
She talks about boys.
She talks about boy trouble.
She expresses a slew of joys, fears, insecurities and doubts.
The only difference is the setting.
One of the reasons that Anne's diary affects us so profoundly is that it is nothing like
any other books about the Holocaust.
It doesn't put the reader inside the concentration camps...
...exposing them to the abject horror of the prisoners' circumstances.
It doesn't focus on the Nazis, asking the reader to examine the soldiers' psyches in
an attempt to understand what could cause them to perform such inhumane acts of brutality.
Nope. Instead... it's a coming-of-age story.
Anne lives with her parents, she has friends and crushes... and a cat.
We can see her grow up as we read... from an innocent child, curious about the world
and filled with angst...
...to a young adult. More confident, more secure... and with the newfound wisdom to be absolutely
terrified. We are naturally drawn to stories of children
anyway...
...and when one of them is placed in such a unique, chilling situation as Anne Frank...
...our attention is held raptly.
Her diary gives us insight into a point of view we just don't have much access to in
terms of World War II literature.
Not that of a grown man, who has lived a full life and has long been aware of the potential
cruelty of man...
...but of a young, blossoming girl, who felt as if she had her entire life in front of
her...
...and could not have known the extent of the evil that lives in some men's hearts.
What makes her emotional journey even sadder...
... is that we know there was an entire generation of young children with similar stories.
Anne's diary gave a voice to all those who died far too young.
We remind ourselves that, as tragic as this account is...
...it is only a mere sampling of the agony and despair that was suffered by Jewish youth
in 1940's Nazi Germany. And, while many young girls write about...
...gossip, secret crushes, and sibling rivalries...
...Anne was a young girl just like them...
...who had far more terrible things from which to hide.
Can you imagine being in Anne's situation... trying to grow up normally... at the same
time that you are surrounded by an unspeakable evil?
How would you have handled it? Shmoop amongst yourselves.