She was ten years old when she went to bed, 80 years ago, and when she woke up the next time, the world as she knew it had ended.
Did the bombs wake her up in the middle of the night?
Did her parents' exclamations wake her up?
Did she hear them turning the radio dial, get up, and wonder what happened?
Did her 14-year-old sister wake her up?
Or did she just wake up the next morning to learn that her country had been invaded?
She and her sister probably didn't go to school that day, although her father did go to work.
Her mother probably told her and her sister to "stay in the house, it's not safe to go out," and I'm guessing she was only too glad to comply.
For the next five days, she lived her life in uncertainty, not knowing what was happening or why, just knowing that her adopted homeland was under attack.
Five days later, the army surrendered.
Five years later, Anne Frank would be dead.
I've been listening to a day-by-day accounting of the World War II years on YouTube. The owner of the channel is a little bit behind due to unavoidable circumstances. :-) The person on the channel reads the day's headlines from the Chicago Tribune 80 years ago (he is a Chicago native) and then will play what would have been broadcast on the radio that day. He's played episodes of Fibber McGee and Molly, The Lone Ranger, and similar shows; he's also broadcast Presidential speeches and breaking news shows.
He's running a little bit behind due to unavoidable circumstances, but in a couple of weeks, he's going to be talking about 80 years ago today, May 10, 1940, which was the day Germany invaded the Low Countries, including the Netherlands, where Anne Frank and her family were living.
His day-by-day approach to recounting history makes me think of the day-by-day lives of people like Anne Frank and her family. We have the advantage of history and are able to see the entire story arc of her life and how it fits into history. She didn't have that advantage. All Anne knew was that one evening, she went to bed, and the next time she got up, the world as she knew it was over.
She didn't know that she'd be dead in five years, that she'd never get to grow up, marry, have children.
Anne could very well join in in singing our theme song:
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine!
Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.
Statcounter
Showing posts with label Anne Frank. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anne Frank. Show all posts
Sunday, May 10, 2020
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
30 years of journals
Stacked in a box and scattered among my bookshelves are various notebooks chronicling over 30 years of my life.
I have Anne Frank to thank for that.
I've kept a diary off and on since I was 10 years old. I no longer have the diaries I wrote in as a child and teenager. The notebooks I have begin at the end of 1986 and continue on to the present.
I first learned about Anne Frank in the 4th grade. I don't remember learning about the Holocaust then, although I'm sure Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were mentioned. What I remember is that there was a girl named Anne Frank, that she kept a diary, and she called it Kitty. The lines I remember reading in our lesson on Anne Frank are: "Anne had only begun to write. If she had lived, her talent would have developed and grown."
When I started my very first diary, it was in one of those five year diaries that don't give you enough room to write in. I called my diary Beth because Beth was my best friend in the 5th grade. (I remember one of my entries was about how badly I'd performed in either kickball or softball and I wrote, "Dumb me, I'm bad in it.")
I started seriously writing a diary in 8th grade and called it Carrie, after an imaginary character of mine that I developed into a book character. That year that I was in 8th grade, I wrote a book about a girl gymnast named Carrie who went to the Olympics and won a gold medal. This was in 1976 and Nadia Comaneci was one of my heroines.
I no longer address my diaries to an imaginary person, and I am not as consistent in writing in a journal as I probably should be. And I don't know what's going to happen to those journals when I die. I'm not sure if anyone would be interested in my life.
I don't know what inspired Anne to want to keep a diary in the first place. She says in her opening pages that she didn't have a real friend and she'd decided that her diary would be that friend.
Today, June 12, 2019, would have been Anne's 90th birthday. On June 12, 1929, she was born in Frankfurt, in Germany. She was four years old, just barely starting to form memories, when her family left Germany and settled in Holland.
June 12, 1942 was her 13th birthday. That was the day where she "went to Mummy and Daddy and then to the sitting room to open my gifts. The first to greet me was you, probably the nicest of all." "You" was a red-checked notebook the size and dimensions of an autograph album. In the front, she wrote, "I hope I shall be able to confide in you completely . . . and that you will be a great support and comfort to me."
She didn't know at that moment what a "support and comfort" that diary would be. Because less than a month later, she and her family, dressed in layers of clothing and walking in a pouring rain, would enter an office on the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam, climb up the back stairs to an attic, and not leave until August 4, 1944, the day they were arrested by the Nazis.
I visited Anne Frank's hiding place in 1996. The longer I stayed there, the more claustrophobic I found the place. That's when I decided that writing in her diary saved Anne's sanity. What do you do when you're cooped up in an attic, you can't go out, you're bursting with energy, and the adults in your life may or may not be the greatest support to you?
You write.
I'm not Jewish and I'm not a young girl forced into hiding by circumstances.
But it's because of Anne that I write.
Today, she would have been 90.
Happy birthday.
Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.
I have Anne Frank to thank for that.
I've kept a diary off and on since I was 10 years old. I no longer have the diaries I wrote in as a child and teenager. The notebooks I have begin at the end of 1986 and continue on to the present.
I first learned about Anne Frank in the 4th grade. I don't remember learning about the Holocaust then, although I'm sure Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were mentioned. What I remember is that there was a girl named Anne Frank, that she kept a diary, and she called it Kitty. The lines I remember reading in our lesson on Anne Frank are: "Anne had only begun to write. If she had lived, her talent would have developed and grown."
When I started my very first diary, it was in one of those five year diaries that don't give you enough room to write in. I called my diary Beth because Beth was my best friend in the 5th grade. (I remember one of my entries was about how badly I'd performed in either kickball or softball and I wrote, "Dumb me, I'm bad in it.")
I started seriously writing a diary in 8th grade and called it Carrie, after an imaginary character of mine that I developed into a book character. That year that I was in 8th grade, I wrote a book about a girl gymnast named Carrie who went to the Olympics and won a gold medal. This was in 1976 and Nadia Comaneci was one of my heroines.
I no longer address my diaries to an imaginary person, and I am not as consistent in writing in a journal as I probably should be. And I don't know what's going to happen to those journals when I die. I'm not sure if anyone would be interested in my life.
I don't know what inspired Anne to want to keep a diary in the first place. She says in her opening pages that she didn't have a real friend and she'd decided that her diary would be that friend.
Today, June 12, 2019, would have been Anne's 90th birthday. On June 12, 1929, she was born in Frankfurt, in Germany. She was four years old, just barely starting to form memories, when her family left Germany and settled in Holland.
June 12, 1942 was her 13th birthday. That was the day where she "went to Mummy and Daddy and then to the sitting room to open my gifts. The first to greet me was you, probably the nicest of all." "You" was a red-checked notebook the size and dimensions of an autograph album. In the front, she wrote, "I hope I shall be able to confide in you completely . . . and that you will be a great support and comfort to me."
She didn't know at that moment what a "support and comfort" that diary would be. Because less than a month later, she and her family, dressed in layers of clothing and walking in a pouring rain, would enter an office on the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam, climb up the back stairs to an attic, and not leave until August 4, 1944, the day they were arrested by the Nazis.
I visited Anne Frank's hiding place in 1996. The longer I stayed there, the more claustrophobic I found the place. That's when I decided that writing in her diary saved Anne's sanity. What do you do when you're cooped up in an attic, you can't go out, you're bursting with energy, and the adults in your life may or may not be the greatest support to you?
You write.
I'm not Jewish and I'm not a young girl forced into hiding by circumstances.
But it's because of Anne that I write.
Today, she would have been 90.
Happy birthday.
Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.
Friday, July 7, 2017
Final bike ride . . .
We know her sister got a good night's sleep the previous evening. *
But did she?
She'd been busy for most of the afternoon, and maybe she did collapse in bed that night. The next morning, she was going on a bike ride. Her riding partner was due to be there very early in the morning, and she needed to be ready to go the minute her partner arrived.
We don't know what was going on in her mind. Did she sleep? Or did she lie awake thinking about that next day's bike ride?
Did she envy her sister's sound sleep in the next bed?
Did she hear the beginning of the rain that night? Or did she wake up and, only then, find out it was raining?
The rain wasn't going to matter, because she was going on that bike ride no matter what.
Next morning, the ring of the doorbell or the knock at the door may have made her jump, but she was there with her bike at the appointed hour. Immediately, after telling her parents good-bye, she mounted, gripped the handlebars, set her feet on the pedals, and pushed.
Perhaps the last thing her parents said to her was, "Be careful," as millions of parents all over the world say to their children before they start off on a bike ride, or a car trip, or before doing something risky or downright dangerous.
Telling her not to go, in spite of the rain, was out of the question.
She probably wore a raincoat over her clothes that day. Her bike tires splashed through puddles and her feet may have slipped a few times on her pedals as she followed her bike partner on their chosen route for that day. She wore glasses, and if she wore them while she rode her bike, they were spotted with the raindrops, and she would have had to stop and wipe them occasionally so she could see.
Her body was used to her bike seat, and she knew how to maneuver her way through the streets.
This ride, though, held more than its usual share of apprehension.
Were there people looking at her as she pushed her pedals, steered her handlebars, braked as she needed to? Everyone that met her eyes, did they know who she was and wonder where she was going?
She was missing a mandatory meeting in order to take this bike ride. Was her name being called at this very moment? Did anyone know yet that she wasn't there? How long would it take before her absence was noted, and how long would it be before people started looking for her?
Her heart pounded harder than usual as she rode, and today, it wasn't because she was getting her exercise.
Nearly an hour later, she and her riding partner, soaked from the rain and weary from negotiating the streets, finally slowed, braked, and stopped. They hurried inside, out of the rain at last.
When the bike rider, fleeing from a Gestapo summons, stepped through the office door at 263 Prinsengratch in Amsterdam, on July 6, 1942, she would not emerge until August 4, 1944.
We know that Anne Frank got a good night's sleep the previous evening.
But did Margot?
Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.
* ("I was exhausted, and even though I knew it'd be my last night in my own bed, I fell asleep right away and didn't wake up until Mother called me at five-thirty the next morning." -- Frank, Anne; The Diary of a Young Girl : the Definitive Edition. New York: Doubleday, 1991, p. 21.)
But did she?
She'd been busy for most of the afternoon, and maybe she did collapse in bed that night. The next morning, she was going on a bike ride. Her riding partner was due to be there very early in the morning, and she needed to be ready to go the minute her partner arrived.
We don't know what was going on in her mind. Did she sleep? Or did she lie awake thinking about that next day's bike ride?
Did she envy her sister's sound sleep in the next bed?
Did she hear the beginning of the rain that night? Or did she wake up and, only then, find out it was raining?
The rain wasn't going to matter, because she was going on that bike ride no matter what.
Next morning, the ring of the doorbell or the knock at the door may have made her jump, but she was there with her bike at the appointed hour. Immediately, after telling her parents good-bye, she mounted, gripped the handlebars, set her feet on the pedals, and pushed.
Perhaps the last thing her parents said to her was, "Be careful," as millions of parents all over the world say to their children before they start off on a bike ride, or a car trip, or before doing something risky or downright dangerous.
Telling her not to go, in spite of the rain, was out of the question.
She probably wore a raincoat over her clothes that day. Her bike tires splashed through puddles and her feet may have slipped a few times on her pedals as she followed her bike partner on their chosen route for that day. She wore glasses, and if she wore them while she rode her bike, they were spotted with the raindrops, and she would have had to stop and wipe them occasionally so she could see.
Her body was used to her bike seat, and she knew how to maneuver her way through the streets.
This ride, though, held more than its usual share of apprehension.
Were there people looking at her as she pushed her pedals, steered her handlebars, braked as she needed to? Everyone that met her eyes, did they know who she was and wonder where she was going?
She was missing a mandatory meeting in order to take this bike ride. Was her name being called at this very moment? Did anyone know yet that she wasn't there? How long would it take before her absence was noted, and how long would it be before people started looking for her?
Her heart pounded harder than usual as she rode, and today, it wasn't because she was getting her exercise.
Nearly an hour later, she and her riding partner, soaked from the rain and weary from negotiating the streets, finally slowed, braked, and stopped. They hurried inside, out of the rain at last.
When the bike rider, fleeing from a Gestapo summons, stepped through the office door at 263 Prinsengratch in Amsterdam, on July 6, 1942, she would not emerge until August 4, 1944.
We know that Anne Frank got a good night's sleep the previous evening.
But did Margot?
Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.
* ("I was exhausted, and even though I knew it'd be my last night in my own bed, I fell asleep right away and didn't wake up until Mother called me at five-thirty the next morning." -- Frank, Anne; The Diary of a Young Girl : the Definitive Edition. New York: Doubleday, 1991, p. 21.)
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)