James Baquet

On June 12, 1942, a young Dutch girl received a blank diary for her 13th birthday. She wrote one line in it that day: “I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.”

That diary was to become one of the most important books of the 20th century. The girl was Anne Frank, and an edited form of the book was published in 1947 as “The Diary of a Young Girl” after its author died of typhus in the infamous Bergen-Belsen concentration camp two years earlier.

The family of the German-born Frank moved to Holland when she was 4 and a half to escape the influence of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany. Unfortunately, six years later, in 1940, the Germans occupied Holland as well and in 1942 the Franks were forced into hiding in the “secret annex” of a house in Amsterdam where her father Otto ran a business. Of the eight residents of the hiding place, only Anne’s father survived.

The earliest pages of the book are somewhat disorganized, but it later became more writerly as Anne consistently addressed herself to “Kitty,” probably a name she gave to the diary itself.

After the end of the war, two of the people who had helped the family hide gave Otto pages of the diary they had found after the family was arrested. Her father “edited” (and perhaps added to) the diary and saw to its publication. Since then it has been translated into over 70 languages, and plays and films based on it have been produced several times.

The original writings have been used as source materials for more critical editions. But it is the original 1947 edition and its translation (such as the first one into English in 1952) that have captivated generations of readers. Though written in unique circumstances, the topics are universal: Anne’s relationship with her parents and sister Margot, her opinions of the other residents of the Annex, and her hopes for romance.

These never had a chance to come to fruition as she died at 15.

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. common to everyone

2. tell secret thoughts to

3. later addition to a building

4. without variation

5. with greater style

6. caught the attention of

7. a serious infectious disease transmitted by lice and fleas, includes weakness, headache, and reddish spots on the body

8. taken possession of, controlled by (a military force)

9. fulfillment

10. well-known for bad reasons