Book Review: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank is a terrific story that reminds us the pain and suffering Jews went through during the WW-II, especially under the cruel regime of Hitler. Though many books and novels have been written and diaries have been collected on Holocaust literature, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank has no match. It is damp with the blood of innocent people’s lives.

The diary on which she began writing was a birthday gift to her in the June of 1942, she was barely thirteen then. She was a native of Netherlands, when Hitler invaded her country she went into hiding along with her family members and some other people. They remained hidden for almost two years in the annex at the back of Otto's company building in Amsterdam. Unfortunately when they were found out in 1944 by the Gestapo and the Dutch police, they were taken to the concentration camps. Later, she died of typhus in 1945, imagine a beautiful girl dying at the age of fifteen. Her diary and other sheets of paper were found and kept safe by Miep Gies, the woman who helped her and some other people to go into hiding.

Of all the people who were hidden and then found and then transported to the concentration camps, only Otto, Anne’s father, survived. And later that Anne Frank's diary was handed to him. He was the only one from that annex who survived the concentration camp. As a reader, you would come to know the people in that annex through Anne's diary.

The fact that these people died such horrible deaths will pain you. You may wonder how Anne's father must have lived the rest of his life with the burden of those memories. How any of the survivors of holocaust must have borne the pain. Memories, like the silly things you and your brother used to hide under the loose floor tile, memories that come back to haunt you when you wonder if he managed to take a final look at those things before he was dragged away. How do you live with that kind of pain? If you would ever read ‘The Diary of Anne Frank, it will keep you sad for many days and her story will stay with you even after leaving the book long before.

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