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Review of Diary of a Young Girl by Frank, Anne

This is an engaging real life story and account of and by a young Jewish girl who spend a lot of her time hiding in small and squeezed quarters from the Nazis during the Second World War. The author of the novel is Anne frank who begins putting together her diary on her thirteenth birthday when she receives it as a present and keeps on writing it for two more years until her story is shortened by her capture by the Nazi troops. At a level that is surprisingly intimate, the young writer reveals in her story how many people of Jewish descent tries to cope with the new reality of the oppressive Nazi regime.

Through her story, the readers are able to see how members of the well- educated and affluent Jewish families are forced to spare their lives with the rest of the Jewish people in cramped quarters. Facilities become rare, food becomes scarce and the environments outside become inaccessible. In such scary and bleak circumstances, the young writer attempts to stay spirited occupying herself with several activities. This paper will analyze and review the major themes in this book to indicate whether it is worth reading or not.

Several themes become evident upon reading of this book. Some of the main ones include suffering, war and duty. Suffering is an obvious theme in this book. All of the residents of the annex struggle with guilt feelings for those of them they have left outside to suffer under the persecution of the Nazi troops. While some of them try to forget or ignore it like Mrs. Van Daan. Other feel bad and suffer for it but choose to remain cheerful like the young writer, the issue of how these residents deal with their feelings about the suffering going on outside of the annex is intimately associated with their own fear of suffering the same fate as the others who have been captured.

All of these residents also struggle with the idea of duty, the duty they have to their country, fellow residents, and friends. Life in the annex is marred with petty conflicts most of which have to do with feelings of sense of duty towards fellow residents. War is also another major theme in the story. Though most of the Jewish families try hard to ignore politics, they are eventually caught up in the war. The war is responsible for the way the annex residents are living. The phrase ‘after war’ is repeatedly used by the adults to indicate a wish of the annex residents that is never fulfilled.

When I read this book, I could not help it but empathize with the Jewish families caught up in the war. The book has a voice of itself and it gives one a new perspective or view of the happenings of the Second World War, other than the one we know. This is a true story of a number of individuals living in unspeakable fear and hoping that soon the war will be over. Although the writer is young, her observations are also intelligent and mature. The book is highly recommendable especially for those individuals with an interest in the events that happened during this war. The book is a firsthand retell of experiences of people who lived those events, it could, therefore, be extremely knowledgeable and intriguing.