Reading 2009 and TV: Anne Frank

I attempted to read The Diary of Anne Frank when I was a teenager. It was beyond me; going on about all that important, depressing stuff reminiscent of those black-and-white documentaries my father watches. I cast it aside and read some Point Horror instead.

It was both late and the right time for me to finally read the entire diary this year, because I finally understand the context of what happened, not just to the Jews in the Netherlands, but how the ordinary people tried to help and what a risk it was for Miep and Bep to help them -- moreover, why they risked their lives to help them. I'm also glad to have seen the actual house now, to understand how claustrophobic the place truly was.

There isn't much to say about the diary that hasn't already been said -- how touching it is, how amazingly talented the girl was, how it's such an important document to remind us of what happened and the folly of persecution. The one thing I didn't like, that I would possibly have understood more as a teenager, was her constant diatribes against Dussel and, above all, her disregard for her mother. It's hard to judge how much was her simply giving vent to her worst emotions in her diary and how much significance she placed on things. This brings me to a BBC dramatisation from January that I watched whilst in Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago - it failed on some levels (I hate that everyone misquotes the last line of her diary), but was very strong in giving her context and showing how she might have misinterpreted things -- she scowls to Margot that Mr. Dussel is 'sulking', when to the viewer it's quite obvious he is grieving.

There is an amazing, short sequence at the end where she tries to hide in the bathroom and the arresting soldier dispassionately remarks, 'There's another here, a kid.' Headstrong, precocious Anne, Anne who recorded history, Anne who said she didn't care much for others, she had grown too much in the war -- sitting on her bed and trying to fasten her shoes with shaking hands. Dussel leans forward and, with paternal kindness, fastens the buckles for her.

I wept.

If you want to watch this fantastic adaptation, you can stream it here. I really recommend it.