(Book Review) "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl"

Reviewed by: Dinis Dwi Shinta R - Research and Development ISAFIS

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl is a published diary of Anne Frank during Nazi's invasion which was found in the attic of her hiding place after her hiding was revealed to Gestapo .  Her father---who managed to survive the war---decided to publish it on 1947. Up until now, it's been sold more than 31 million copies and translated into around 67 languages .

This book mainly tells about the life of an innocent young girl whose world was turned upside down out of the blue. Anne Frank was still 13 years old when the holocaust happened. Her life used to be the flowery teenage days which went just fine until Germany under Hitler's regime invaded Netherland. Therefore,  she had to go into hiding in a cramped space she called "The Secret Annexe". In total, there were eight people living in that close quarter: Anne's family and four acquaintances. Every single day, they were living in constant fear (if not escalating) of being discovered then sent to Nazi's concentration camp; enslaved and persecuted. No one could promise them "It's OK. There's still tomorrow," because their life was so full of uncertainty. Living in hiding within such limited space seemed unbearable since they were restricted to do anything. 

They had to bear boredom, food shortage, and increased prices. They had to remain silent even tension and argument that occurred between each and every one of them urged them to scream and shout out loud. They were forced to indulge themselves with no sound other than blazing air attacks and gunshots. The worst of all, Anne said, was that they heard the world crumbling miserably outside then they could only felt guilty for not being able to make things better. They constantly led that kind of life for around two years until their whereabouts were revealed to the Gestapo then they were taken to the concentration camp.

Reading this book would give you a chance to live in the soul of a 13-year-old girl who had to face atrocities just because she was born being her: a Jew. Seeing the world through the honest point of view from Anne Frank at the time of holocaust, you will be amazed by the fact that for the girl of her age, she wasn't that innocent. Instead, she was really critical in responding to the occuring events and was wise enough as well. Through my journey of reading this book, I've lost count on how many times I have said, "How could a 13-year-old girl think of this?" 

Well, although it may be seem monotonous at some points because she only told about her constant living inside The Secret Annexe, her way of criticizing others will not fail to entertain you and keep you to turn to the next pages. When she's confronted to argument with another person, she prefers pouring it out on the papers, "It's better for hard words to be on paper than Mom should carry them in her heart,"---when she argued with her mom. I really recommend this book to those who want to get deep insights about the holocaust, social dynamics within Nazi's regime, and perhaps to those who want to accompany me feeling the heartbreak each time Anne said, "soon when everything gets normal again..." knowing that the world didn't get the chance to turn normal for Anne Frank.

After going this far, perhaps some of you are questioning what holocaust exactly is. The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators . In 1933, Jewish population in Europe stood over nine million and after 1945, only 3 million of them were left alive. The main reason behind this holocaust was that Nazi---who came into power in January 1933---believed that Germans were racially superior and Jews were inferior. This belief led to the conclusion that Jews were threatening German racial community's purity then it pushed them to do the ethnic cleansing. 

The first six years after Hitler came into power, Jews felt more than 400 decrees and regulations that restricted all aspects of their public and private lives. The Nazi insisted Jews to wear a yellow star badge on their arms to segregate them from population, control their movement, and reinforce their inferiority. They were also banned from public facilities; public transportation, public health service, etc. To add up the misery, Jews were sent to Nazi's camps spreaded across Europe either to be used as forced labor or to face mass murder with poisonous gas. Before facing their death, they were persecuted and were not properly treated as human beings.

After 12 years of lasting atrocities, the Battle of Berlin in the late 1945 marked the end of Nazi regime. It was when 2 millions of Soviet's soldiers invaded Berlin, Germany and Nazi soldiers were facing hardship to fight back. East Germany finally fell to the Soviet then rumour said that Hitler and other high-ranking Nazi officials committed suicide. 

In January 2005, when commemorating 60th anniversary of Auschwitz Camp  liberation, UN General Assembly drafted a resolution to designate January 27 as the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. The resolution called for education programs on the holocaust to help prevent genocide. It also rejected denials that the holocaust occurred. Holocaust survivors, their descendants, and various leader make their voice heard on the commemoration day every year about their experience around the event, its aftermath, and why the world should never forget what happened in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. 

It is indeed our responsibility as the young generation which will bring this world to the future to learn from history to realize what this world really wants then work hands in hands to pursue it: the lasting peace.

Author: Anne Frank
Year: 1947, 1993 (Reissue edition)
Pages: 283
Publisher: Bantam