Name: Ngo Vu Thu Ngan

Class: 11E7

Phase 2: BOOK REVIEW CONTENT

“The Diary of Anne Frank” By Anne Frank

1. Describe main characters/ subjects; personal comments

The book is a diary of Anne Frank, which was written during the
dramatic changes of German. Anne Frank was a young girl full of energy
and optimism and hunger for knowledge. She was gifted at writing. She
was also moody, sensitive, like every other little girl, she was also
occasionally rude to people, though she did not mean to. To sum up, she
was an extraordinary girl with writing ability. However, she was like a
blank page; her stories were real, honest and relatable, written under the
perspective of a naive girl. Over two years, Anne’s way of writing
changed a lot, which can be considered “growth”. She developed her
love for more academic fields such as politics or humans. She was more
and more mature after days, making the readers forget that they are
reading the diary of a teenager. She described the situation in a desperate
voice, she even had to make herself busy so that she would not think
about the days they were going to be caught. To the end of the diary, we
cannot recognize the old Anne Frank. From a naive, bright girl, she
became more and more alienated, sometimes we can sense the fear in her words. Those shocking papers also
reflected the society then, to be more specific, the Second World War and the wars by Adolf Hitler and his
regime. The main subject of this work of art mostly resolved around the historical events during 1942 to 1945.
The Frank family’s hiding and being summoned into the labour camp are all rooted from Adolf Hitler’s law,
which stated that any Jewish that did not go to the labour camp would be arrested. Those events had sparked
heated debates since there were a variety of inhumane discriminations and corporal punishments on those
innocent. At that time, not only Jews were killed but also millions of Germans, since they did not fit the image
of the “perfect German”. The number of killed Jews was estimated to be around six million. Hitler blamed
Jewish people for Germany losing the First World War and stated that Jews were a threat to German people
and society. To date, World War II has been the worst and most bloodthirsty battle. At the end of the war more
than 38 million people died, many of whom were innocent civilians. This was perhaps the most devastating
battle in present-day history. More than 50 nations participated in this war which forever changed the world.
All in all, those changes made obviously brought more drawbacks than benefits; therefore, to my opinion, this
war and these events were deadly.

2. Organisation of the book; personal comments

The book may be a diary, therefore, it absolutely was written within the order of your time, from when she
first received the diary until the day she survived within the labour camp. The diary started on June 12th,
1942, when Anne received the diary as her thirteenth
birthday gift and named it Kitty. She hoped she would be
able to confide everything with “her”. On 5 July 1942,
Margot received a call-up to report for a labour camp for
Jews in Germany. Their parents failed to want her to
travel, but those that failed to go, were arrested. Due to
Margot's call-up, they advanced their move and went into
hiding within the Secret Annex inside Anne’s father’s
workplace in Amsterdam. Some days later, Anne wrote
about being a doggo in her diary. In July, 1943, the Van
Pels family went into hiding with them. During those days, Anne wrote about the activities within the
topographic point, about her puberty and curiosity to grasp and understand herself and her body. She also
developed a love relationship with Peter van Pels. On 4th August, 1944, the annex was raided by the safety
police since someone gave up their hiding address. and that they were all sent to a labour camp. Within the
end of October 1944, Anne and her sister Margot were transported to Bergen Belsen concentration camp, far
other than their parents. The diary ended some days before March 1945, when Anne and Margot both died of
typhus. After that, Otto Frank was the sole occupant of the key Annex to survive. And eventually, on 25th
June 1947, Anne's diary was first published troubled. it's now been translated into 70 languages and is one in
all the world's most well-liked books. I feel this is often the proper and suitable structure and organisation for
a diary. Moreover, the work wasn't only written within the order of your time but also the order of mood and
feelings. Anne gradually became more and more mature, commencing to develop a woman’s feelings, not a
woman anymore. She began to understand growth, puberty and love. She was eventually able to express what
she wanted to express, talk about what she wanted to know, find out about what she was curious about. At the
end of the diary, from a bright female person, she became a woman filled with fear and desperation, that the
readers cannot recognise what they are reading is written by a teenager when she was only fourteen or fifteen
years of age.

3. Most impressive detail/ chapter, why?

Detail you would like to change
To me, the most impressive part of the diary is the one Anne wrote on 28th January, 1944 and 11th March
1944, when Anne started to notice that Peter van Pels was always looking at her “not in the usual way”. Then,
they talked to each other more frequently, and Anne found out that they were both temperamental. They were
both too nervous when speaking to people, and that they all used to beat up, or be rude to people instead of
talking to them. She also wrote that she enjoyed going upstairs to see Peter, and she felt her life started to
become better since she had something to look forward to each day; but her mother did not like her going up
to see Peter. She wrote that she thought about Peter all the time; she wrote about love, saying that emotional
love would eventually lead to physical love and she considered that a natural progress of love. Anne also looks
back on her time in the annex and distinguishes between various stages in her growing maturity. In 1942, she
said that the transition from a life "full of sunshine" to at least one of the quarrels and accusations made her
stubborn and insolent. In 1943 she was sad, lonely and self-critical, then she became a young adult again, and
she was treated more like a grown up. She also wrote seriously about the possibility of her death, maybe when
her morale worsened; at the same time, she imagined how life would be after the war, and about the great
fortune she was having that she could hide in the Secret Annex. I think the two chapters are the most
interesting and meaningful since Anne expressed her maturity really clearly in those parts. She was curious
about love relationships and started to have serious talks with her family. Anne has developed a better
understanding of herself by this point in her diary, and a better understanding of her relationships with the
individuals in the annex. She also began to sign her diary “Anne M. Frank” instead of just simply “Anne”,
which perceived her recognising herself an adult. She has become highly pensive and anxious about her own
nature, and he or she begins to reflect on her past development and organize it into stages. Anne uses her diary
as her inner soul and feeling timeline which she analyzes and criticizes. Through questioning her own past
behavior and emotions, she reveals her capacity for private development and self-consciousness, two essential
aspects of coming of age. However, Anne’s growing maturity is evident in the increased gravity of her being
able to confess her love, her thoughts about life and the war. Moreover, I would not like to change any single
detail since this is Anne’s life, and everyone deserves to have their own unique life.

4. Allusions and influences of the book

The Diary of Anne Frank has been published into 70 languages and 30
million copies sold. What makes it well-known worldwide is the
messages that Anne wanted to tell every single individual, especially
those amid World War II. Those implications were important to Anne,
and are still inspirational to us these days. She wrote a lot about how she
felt hiding in the Secret Annex, how life would be after war, what would
happen if she died, what had the world become since the Nazis used
chemical weapons. Those could be referred to as alarming warnings, but
from a little girl; which would make the situation much more dangerous
and serious. It implied that the world was no longer safe any more, and
she had to keep herself safe; therefore, she wrote some inspirational
quotes stated below. She wrote that “I know what I want, I have a goal,
an opinion, I have a religion and love. Let me be myself and then I am satisfied. I know that I’m a woman, a
woman with inward strength and plenty of courage”. She wanted to tell us that despite religions, races, she is
still herself, we are still ourselves. We live to satisfy ourselves, not to satisfy others, not to make a nation
“perfect” by any means. She told us to stay strong and everything would be alright. She also wrote that “It’s
difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim
reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to
them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart”. Honestly, I cannot
believe those are words written by a fourteen- year- old girl; she was motivating herself, and others, telling
people to have their own opinions under no circumstances. She believed that everyone has a good inner
person, though he appeared to be good or not, she took pride in being optimistic in the middle of war and
violence. Anne's words carry on offering hope until these days, which echo through generations and reach
people of all backgrounds and cultures. They gave us the courage to teach future generations about past
horrors; to depart this world the ideas of freedom from fear. Her messages have influenced lots of people; for
instance, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, the exhibition not only tells the story of Anne, but also stories
of teenagers today. Gaining inspiration from Anne’s quotes about being a powerful woman, this exhibition
looks at the way teenagers house identity, discrimination, and exclusion. Anne Frank is also an inspiration for
young people to speak up, since she wrote “We aren’t allowed to have any opinions. People can tell you to
keep your mouth shut, but it doesn’t stop you having your own opinion. Even if people are still very young,
they shouldn’t be prevented from saying what they think”. I also empathise with her, while reading the diary, I
feel that this is no longer a diary, this is a declaration for the youth, the Jewish against the bad, the
discrimination.

5. Reader’s reaction to the book

Personally, I feel that there is no other diary like Anne's journal on Earth. It is an unfinished story, but it ended
by the words of history, not the words of Anne. At first, I was amazed, yet horrified, at all the things that her
family had to go through to survive that deadly war. It was eye-opening to
see what it must have been like to live in the constant fear that would only
lead to death. I first thought that they would survive and live happily ever
after like any other fairy tales, since her journal was eventually published;
but to the very end, I started to feel hopeless; then I wondered how would
Anne feel back then, being imprisoned and murdered by the Nazis, just
because they do not fit the frame of Germany. Before reading the book, I
have already seen videos and read articles about Adolf Hitler and the Nazis
punishing and murdering the Jews; but back then, I just simply thought that it
was just a war, if not killed, then survived. But after reading the diary, I felt
so unhappy and a sort of despair took over me for weeks, it did not make any
sense since all the Jews were killed just because they are Jews. Although
sad, this journal is also inspiring. Anne inspired many young people like me,
to be grateful for the globe that we have. Anne taught me a lot. She taught me to have my own opinions,
despite what others say about me. She taught me to learn from the mistakes I made in the past, so that I can
become a better person day by day. I feel like she is an exquisite person who really understands her life and
how the world really works. I think she was one of the wisest people, since she could see the great in
everyone. If Anne would still be here today, she would have been an excellent model for everybody
everywhere in the world.

6. References:
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/annefrank/section8/# (sparknotes.com)
https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/jan/27/the-greatest-anne-frank-quotes-ever
(theguardian.com)
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/anne-franks-message-is-still-important-today (teenvogue.com)