Anne Frank - Anne Frank - The Diary of a Young Girl

Father to relight the candle. He was adamant: there was to be no light. Suddenly we heard a burst of machine-gun fire, and that's ten times worse than antiaircraft guns. Mother jumped out of bed and, to Pim's great annoyance, lit the candle. Her resolute answer to his grumbling was, "After all, Anne is not an ex-soldier!" And that was the end of that!

Have I told you any of Mrs. van D.'s other fears? I don't think so. To keep you up to date on the latest adventures in the Secret Annex, I should tell you this as well. One night Mrs. van D. thought she heard loud footsteps in the attic, and she was so afraid of burglars, she woke her husband. At that very same moment, the thieves disappeared, and the only sound Mr. van D. could hear was the frightened pounding of his fatalistic wife's heart. "Oh, Putti!" she cried. (Putti is Mrs. van D.'s pet name for her husband.) "They must have taken all our sausages and dried beans. And what about Peter? Oh, do you think Peter's still safe and sound in his bed?"

"I'm sure they haven't stolen Peter. Stop being such a ninny, and let me get back to sleep!"

Impossible. Mrs. van D. was too scared to sleep.

A few nights later the entire van Daan family was awakened by ghostly noises. Peter went to the attic with a flashlight and-scurry, scurry-what do you think he saw running away? A whole slew of enormous rats!

Once we knew who the thieves were, we let Mouschi sleep in the attic and never saw our uninvited guests again. . . at least not at night.

A few evenings ago (it was seven-thirty and still light), Peter went up to the loft to get some old newspapers. He had to hold on tightly to the trapdoor to climb down the ladder. He put down his hand without looking, and nearly fell off the ladder from shock and pain. Without realizing it, he'd put his hand on a large rat, which had bitten him in the arm. By the time he reached us, white as a sheet and with his knees knocking, the blood had soaked through his pajamas. No wonder he was so shaken, since petting a rat isn't much fun, especially when it takes a chunk out of your arm.

Yours, Anne

FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 1943

Dearest Kitty,

May I introduce: Mama Frank, the children's advocate! Extra butter for the youngsters, the problems facing today's youth-you name it, and Mother defends the younger generation. After a skirmish or two, she always gets her way. One of the jars of pickled tongue is spoiled. A feast for Mouschi and Boche. You haven't met Boche yet, despite the fact that she was here before we went into hiding. She's the warehouse and office cat, who keeps the rats at bay in the storeroom.

Her odd, political name can easily be explained. For a while the firm Gies & Co. had two cats: one for the warehouse and one for the attic. Their paths crossed from time to time, which invariably resulted in a fight. The warehouse cat was always the aggressor, while the attic cat was ultimately the victor, just as in politics. So the warehouse cat was named the German, or "Boche," and the attic cat the Englishman, or "Tommy." Sometime after that they got rid of Tommy, but Boche is always there to amuse us when we go downstairs.

VVe've eaten so many brown beans and navy beans that I can't stand to look at them. Just thinking about them makes me sick.

Our evening serving of bread has been canceled.

Daddy just said that he's not in a very cheerful mood. His eyes look so sad again, the poor man!

I can't tear myself away from the book A Knock at the Door by Ina Bakker Boudier. This family saga is extremely well written, but the parts dealing with war, writers and the emancipation of women aren't very good. To be honest, these subjects don't interest me much.

Terrible bombing raids on Germany. Mr. van Daan is grouchy. The reason: the cigarette shortage.

The debate about whether or not to start eating the canned food ended in our favor.

I can't wear any of my shoes, except my ski boots, which are not very practical around the house. A pair of straw thongs that were purchased for 6.50 guilders were worn down to the soles within a week. Maybe Miep will be able to scrounge up something on the black market.

It's time to cut Father's hair. Pim swears that I do such a good job he'll never go to another barber after the war. If only I didn't nick his ear so often!

Yours, Anne

THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1943

My dearest Kitty,

Turkey's entered the war. Great excitement. Anxiously awaiting radio reports. FRIDAY, MARCH 19, 1943

Dearest Kitty,

In less than an hour, joy was followed by disappoint ment. Turkey hasn't entered the war yet. It was only a cabinet minister talking about Turkey giving up its neu trality sometime soon. The newspaper vendor in Dam Square was shouting "Turkey on England's side!" and the papers were being snatched out of his hands. This was how we'd heard the encouraging rumor.

Thousand-guilder notes are being declared invalid. That'll be a blow to the black marketeers and others like them, but even more to pe Ie in hiding and anyone else with money that can't be accounted for. To turn in a thousand-guilder bill, you have to be able to state how you came by it and provide proof. They can still be used to pay taxes, but only until next week. The five-hundred notes will lapse at the same time. Gies & Co. still had some unaccounted-for thousand-guilder bills, which they used to pay their estimated taxes for the coming years, so everything seems to be aboveboard. Dussel has received an old-fashioned, foot-operated dentist's drill. That means I'll probably be getting a thorough checkup soon.

Dussel is terribly lax when it comes to obeying the rules of the house. Not only does he write letters to his Charlotte, he's also carrying on a chatty correspondence with various other people. Margot, the Annex's Dutch teacher, has been correcting these letters for him. Father has forbidden him to keep up the practice and Margot has stopped correcting the letters, but I think it won't be long before he starts up again.

The Fuhrer has been talking to wounded soldiers. We listened on the radio, and it was pathetic. The questions and answers went something like this: "My name is Heinrich Scheppel."

"Where were you wounded?"

"Near Stalingrad."

"What kind of wound is it?"

"Two frostbitten feet and a fracture of the left arm."

This is an exact report of the hideous puppet show aired on the radio. The wounded seemed proud of their wounds-the more the better. One was so beside himself at the thought of shaking hands (I presume he still had one) with the Fuhrer that he could barely say a word.

I happened to drop Dussel's soap on the floor and step on it. Now there's a whole piece missing. I've already asked Father to compensate him for the damages, especially since Dussel only gets one bar of inferior wartime soap a month.

Yours, Anne

THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1943

Dearest Kitty,

Mother, Father, Margot and I were sitting quite pleasantly together last night when Peter suddenly came in and whispered in Father's ear. I caught the words "a barrel falling over in the warehouse" and "someone fiddling with the door." Margot heard it too, but was trying to calm me down, since I'd turned white as chalk and was extremely nervous. The three of us waited while Father and Peter went downstairs. A minute or two later Mrs. van Daan came up from where she'd been listening to the radio and told us that Pim had asked her to turn it off and tiptoe upstairs. But you know what happens when you're trying to be quiet-the old stairs creaked twice as loud. Five minutes later Peter and Pim, the color drained from their faces, appeared again to relate their experiences. They had positioned themselves under the staircase and waited. Nothing happened. Then all of a sudden they heard a couple of bangs, as if two doors had been slammed shut inside the house. Pim bounded up the stairs, while Peter went to warn Dussel, who finally pre sented himself upstairs, though not without kicking up a fuss and making a lot of noise. Then we all tiptoed in our stockinged feet to the van Daans on the next floor. Mr. van D. had a bad cold and had already gone to bed, so we gathered around his bedside and discussed our suspicions in a whisper. Every time Mr. van D. coughed loudly, Mrs. van D. and I nearly had a nervous fit. He kept coughing until someone came up with the bright idea of giving him codeine. His cough subsided immediately. Once again we waited and waited, but heard nothing. Finally we came to the conclusion that the burglars had taken to their heels when they heard footsteps in an otherwise quiet building. The problem now was that the chairs in the private office were neatly grouped around the radio, which was tuned to England. If the burglars had forced the door and the air-raid wardens were to notice it and call the police, there could be very serious repercus sions. So Mr. van Daan got up, pulled on his coat and pants, put on his hat and cautiously followed Father down the stairs, with Peter (armed with a heavy hammer, to be on the safe side) right behind him. The ladies (including Margot and me) waited in suspense until the men returned five minutes later and reported that there was no sign of any activity in the building. We agreed not to run any water or flush the toilet; but since everyone's stomach was churning from all the tension, you can imagine the stench after we'd each had a turn in the bathroom.