THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1944
Dearest Kitty,
Whew! Released from the gloom and doom for a few moments!
All I’ve been hearing today is: “If this and that happens, we’re in trouble, and
if so-and-so gets sick, we’ll be left to fend for ourselves, and if . . .”
Well, you know the rest, or at any rate I assume you’re famthar enough with
the residents of the Annex to guess what they’d be talking about.
The reason for all the “ifs” is that Mr. Kugler has been called up for a six-day
work detail, Bep is down with a bad cold and will probably have to stay
home tomorrow, Miep hasn’t gotten over her flu, and Mr. Kleiman’s stomach bled so much he lost consciousness. What a tale of woe!
We think Mr. Kugler should go directly to a reliable doctor for a medical
certificate of ill health, which he can present to the City Hall in Hilversum.
The warehouse –employees have been given a day off tomorrow, so Bep will
be alone in the office. If (there’s another “if’) Bep has to stay home, the door
will remain locked and we’ll have to be as quiet as mice so the Keg Company
won’t hear us. At one o’clock Jan will come for half an hour to check on us
poor forsaken souls, like a zookeeper.
This afternoon, for the first time in ages, Jan gave us some news of the
outside world. You should have seen us gathered around him; it looked
exactly like a print: “At Grandmother’s Knee.”
He regaled his grateful audience with talk of-what else?-food. Mrs. P., a
friend of Miep’s, has been cooking his meals. The day before yesterday Jan
ate carrots with green peas, yesterday he had the leftovers, today she’s
cooking marrowfat peas, and tomorrow she’s plan- ning to mash the
remaining carrots with potatoes.
We asked about Miep’s doctor.
“Doctor?” said Jan. “What doctor? I called him this morning and got his
secretary on the line. I asked for a flu prescription and was told I could come
pick it up tomor- row morning between eight and nine. If you’ve got a
particularly bad case of flu, the doctor himself comes to the phone and says,
‘Stick out your tongue and say “Aah.” Oh, I can hear it, your throat’s infected.
I’ll write out a prescription and you can bring it to the phar- macy. Good day.’
And that’s that. Easy job he’s got, diagnosis by phone. But I shouldn’t blame
the doctors.” After all, a person has only two hands, and these days there’re
too many patients and too few doctors.”
Still, we all had a good laugh at Jan’s phone call. I can just imagine what a
doctor’s waiting room looks like these days. Doctors no longer turn up their
noses at the poorer patients, but at those with minor illnesses. “Hey, what are
you doing here?” they think. “Go to the end of the line; real patients have
priority!”
Yours, Anne
THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1944
Dearest Kitty,
The weather is gorgeous, indescribably beautiful; I’ll be going up to the attic
in a moment.
I now know why I’m so much more restless than Peter. He has his own room,
where he can work, dream, think and sleep.
I’m constantly being chased from one corner to another. I’m never alone in
the room I share with Dussel, though I long to be so much. That’s another
reason I take refuge in the attic.
When I’m there, or with you, I can be myself, at least for a little while. Still, I
don’t want to moan and groan. On the contrary, I want to be brave!
Thank goodness the others notice nothing of my innermost feelings, except
that every day I’m growing cooler and more contemptuous of Mother, less
affection- ate to Father and less willing to share a single thought with Margot;
I’m closed up tighter than a drum. Above all, I have to maintain my air of
confidence. No one must know that my heart and mind are constantly at war
with each other. Up to now reason has always won the battle, but will my
emotions get the upper hand? Sometimes I fear they will, but more often I
actually hope they do!
Oh, it’s so terribly hard not to talk to Peter about these things, but I know I
have to let him begin; it’s so hard to act during the daytime as if everything
I’ve said and done in my dreams had never taken place! Kitty, Anne is crazy,
but then these are crazy times and even crazier circumstances.
The nicest part is being able to write down all my thoughts and feelings;
otherwise, I’d absolutely suffocate. I wonder what Peter thinks about all these
things? I keep thinking I’ll be able to talk to him about them one day. He must
have guessed something about the inner me, since he couldn’t possibly love
the outer Anne he’s known so far! How could someone like Peter, who loves
peace and quiet, possibly stand my bustle and noise? Will he be the first and
only person to see what’s beneath my granite mask? Will it take him long?
Isn’t there some old saying about love being akin to pity? Isn’t that what’s
happening here as well? Because I often pity him as much as I do myself!
I honestly don’t know how to begin, I really don’t, so how can I expect Peter
to when talking is so much harder for him?
If only I could write to him, then at least he’d know what I was trying to say,
since it’s so hard to say it out loud!
Yours, Anne M. Frank
FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 1944
My dearest darling,
Everything turned out all right after all; Bep just had a sore throat, not the flu,
and Mr. Kugler got a medical certificate to excuse him from the work detail.
The entire Annex breathed a huge sigh of relief. Everything’s fine here!
Except that Margot and I are rather tired of our parents.
Don’t get me wrong. I still love Father as much as ever and Margot loves both
Father and Mother, but when you’re as old as we are, you want to make a few
decisions for yourself, get out from under their thumb. Whenever I go
upstairs, they ask what I’m going to do, they won’t let me salt my food,
Mother asks me every evening at eight-fifteen if it isn’t time for me to change
into my nighty, I and they have to approve every book I read. I must admit,
they’re not at all strict about that and let me read nearly everything, but
Margot and I are sick and tired of having to listen to their comments and
questions all day long.
There’s something else that displeases them: I no longer feel like giving them
little kisses morning, noon and night.
All those cute nicknames seem so affected, and Father’s fondness for talking
about farting and going to the bathroom is disgusting. In short, I’d like
nothing better than to do without their company for a while, and they don’t
understand that. Not that Margot and I have ever said any of this to them.
What would be the point? They wouldn’t understand anyway.
Margot said last night, “What really bothers me is that if you happen to put
your head in your hands and sigh once or twice, they immediately ask
whether you have a headache or don’t feel well.”
For both of us, it’s been quite a blow to suddenly realize that very little
remains of the close and harmoni- ous family we used to have at home! This
is mostly because everything’s out of kilter here. By that I mean that we’re
treated like children when it comes to external matters, while, inwardly, we’re
much older than other girls our age. Even though I’m only fourteen, I know
what I want, I know who’s right and who’s wrong, I have my own opinions,
ideas and principles, and though it may sound odd coming from a teenager, I
feel I’m more of a person than a child — I feel I’m completely independent of
others. I know I’m better at debating or carrying on a discussion than Mother,
I know I’m more objective, I don’t exaggerate as much, I’m much tidier and
better with my hands, and because of that I feel (this may make you laugh)
that I’m superior to her in many ways. To love someone, I have to admire and
respect the person, but I feel neither respect nor admiration for Mother!
Everything would be all right if only I had Peter, since I admire him in many
ways. He’s so decent and clever!
Yours, Anne M. Frank
SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1944
Dearest Kitty,
I’ve told you more about myself and my feelings than I’ve ever told a living
soul, so why shouldn’t that include sex?
Parents, and people in general, are very peculiar when it comes to sex.
Instead of telling their sons and daughters everything at the age of twelve,
they send the children out of the room the moment the subject arises and
leave them to find out everything on their own. Later on, when parents notice
that their children have, somehow, come by their information, they assume
they know more (or less) than they actually do. So why don’t they try to make
amends by asking them what’s what?
A major stumbling block for the adults — though in my opinion it’s no more
than a pebble — is that they’re afraid their children will no longer look upon
marriage as sacred and pure once they realize that, in most cases, this purity
is a lot of nonsense. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not wrong for a man to bring
a little experience to a marriage. After all, it has nothing to do with the
marriage itself, does it?
Soon after I turned eleven, they told me about menstruation. But even then, I
had no idea where the blood came from or what it was for. When I was
twelve and a half, I learned some more from Jacque, who wasn’t as ignorant
as I was. My own intuition told me what a man and a woman do when they’re
together; it seemed like a crazy idea at first, but when Jacque confirmed it, I
was proud of myself for having figured it out!
It was also Jacque who told me that children didn’t come out of their mother’s
tummies. As she put it, “Where the ingredients go in is where the finished
product comes out!”
Jacque and I found out about the hymen, and quite a few other details, from a
book on sex education. I also knew that you could keep from having children,
but how that worked inside your body remained a mystery. When I came
here, Father told me about prostitutes, etc., but all in all there are still
unanswered questions.
If mothers don’t tell their children everything, they hear it in bits and pieces,
and that can’t be right.
Even though it’s Saturday, I’m not bored! That’s because I’ve been up in the
attic with Peter. I sat there dreaming with my eyes closed, and it was
wonderful.
Yours, Anne M. Frank
SUNDAY, MARCH 19, 1944
Dearest Kitty,
Yesterday was a very important day for me. After lunch everything was as
usual. At five I put on the potatoes, and Mother gave me some blood sausage
to take to Peter. I didn’t want to at first, but I finally went. He wouldn’t accept
the sausage, and I had the dreadful feel- ing it was still because of that
argument we’d had about distrust. Suddenly I couldn’t bear it a moment
longer and my eyes filled with tears. Without another word, I re- turned the
platter to Mother and went to the bathroom to have a good cry. Afterward I
decided to talk things out with Peter. Before dinner the four of us were
helping him with a crossword puzzle, so I couldn’t say anything. But as we
were sitting down to eat, I whispered to him, “Are you going to practice your
shorthand tonight, Peter?”
“No,” was his reply.
“I’d like to talk to you later on.”
He agreed.
After the dishes were done, I went to his room and asked if he’d refused the
sausage because of our last quar- rel.
Luckily, that wasn’t the reason; he just thought it was bad manners to seem so
eager. It had been very hot downstairs and my face was as red as a lobster. So
after taking down some water for Margot, I went back up to get a little fresh
air.
For the sake of appearances, I first went and stood beside the van Daans’
window before going to Peter’s room. He was standing on the left side of the
open window, so I went over to the right side. It’s much easier to talk next to
an open window in semidarkness than in broad daylight, and I think Peter felt
the same way. We told each other so much, so very much, that I can’t repeat it
all. But it felt good; it was the most won- derful evening I’ve ever had in the
Annex. I’ll give you a brief description of the various subjects we touched on.
First we talked about the quarrels and how I see them in a very different light
these days, and then about how we’ve become alienated from our parents. I
told Peter about Mother and Father and Margot and myself. At one point he
asked, “You always give each other a good-night kiss, don’t you?”
“One? Dozens of them. You don’t, do you?”
“No, I’ve never really kissed anyone.”
“Not even on your birthday?”
“Yeah, on my birthday I have.”
We talked about how neither of us really trusts our parents, and how his
parents love each other a great deal and wish he’d confide in them, but that he
doesn’t want to. How I cry my heart out in bed and he goes up to the loft and
swears. How Margot and I have only recently gotten to know each other and
yet still tell each other very little, since we’re always together. We talked
about every imaginable thing, about trust, feelings and ourselves. Oh, Kitty,
he was just as I thought he would be.
Then we talked about the year 1942, and how different we were back then;
we don’t even recognize ourselves from that period. How we couldn’t stand
each other at first. He’d thought I was a noisy pest, and I’d quickly concluded
that he was nothing special. I didn’t understand why he didn’t flirt with me,
but now I’m glad. He also mentioned how he often used to retreat to his room.
I said that my noise and exuberance and his silence were two sides of the
same coin, and that I also liked peace and quiet but don’t have anything for
myself alone, except my diary, and that everyone would rather see the back
of me, starting with Mr. Dussel, and that I don’t always want to sit with my
parents. We discussed how glad he is that my parents have children and how
glad I am that he’s here.
How I now understand his need to withdraw and his relationship to his
parents, and how much I’d like to help him when they argue.
“But you’re always a help to me!” he said.
“How?” I asked, greatly surprised.
“By being cheerful.”
That was the nicest thing he said all evening. He also told me that he didn’t
mind my coming to his room the way he used to; in fact, he liked it. I also
told him that all of Father’s and Mother’s pet names were meaningless, that a
kiss here and there didn’t automatically lead to trust. We also talked about
doing things your own way, the diary, loneliness, the difference between
everyone’s inner and outer selves, my mask, etc.
It was wonderful. He must have come to love me as a friend, and, for the time
being, that’s enough. I’m so grateful and happy, I can’t find the words. I must
apologize, Kitty, since my style is not up to my usual standard today. I’ve just
written whatever came into my head!
I have the feeling that Peter and I share a secret.
Whenever he looks at me with those eyes, with that smile and that wink, it’s
as if a light goes on inside me. I hope things will stay like this and that we’ll
have many, many more happy hours together.
Your grateful and happy Anne
MONDAY, MARCH 20, 1944
Dearest Kitty,
This morning Peter asked me if I’d come again one evening.
He swore I wouldn’t be disturbing him, and said that where there was room
for one, there was room for two. I said I couldn’t see him every evening, since
my parents didn’t think it was a good idea, but he thought I shouldn’t let that
bother me. So I told him I’d like to come some Saturday evening and also
asked him if he’d let me know when you could see the moon.
“Sure,” he said, “maybe we can go downstairs and look at the moon from
there.” I agreed; I’m not really so scared of burglars.
In the meantime, a shadow has fallen on my happiness. For a long time I’ve
had the feeling that Margot likes Peter.
Just how much I don’t know, but the whole situation is very unpleasant. Now
every time I go see Peter I’m hurting her, without meaning to. The funny
thing is that she hardly lets it show. I know I’d be insanely jealous, but
Margot just says I shouldn’t feel sorry for her.
“I think it’s so awful that you’ve become the odd one out,” I added.
“I’m used to that,” she replied, somewhat bitterly.
I don’t dare tell Peter. Maybe later on, but he and I need to discuss so many
other things first.
Mother slapped me last night, which I deserved. I mustn’t carry my
indifference and contempt for her too far. In spite of everything, I should try
once again to be friendly and keep my remarks to myself!
Even Pim isn’t as nice as he used to be. He’s been trying not to treat me like a
child, but now he’s much too cold.
We’ll just have to see what comes of it! He’s warned me that if I don’t do my
algebra, I won’t get any tutoring after the war. I could simply wait and see
what happens, but I’d like to start again, provided I get a new book.
That’s enough for now. I do nothing but gaze at Peter, and I’m filled to
overflowing!
Yours, Anne M. Frank
Evidence of Margot’s goodness. I received this today, March 20, 1944:
Anne, yesterday when I said I wasn’t jeal- ous of you, I wasn’t being entirely
honest. The situation is this: I’m not jealous of either you or Peter. I’m just
sorry I haven’t found anyone willi whom to share my thoughts and feelings,
and I’m not likely to in the near future. But that’s why I wish, from the bottom
of my heart, that you will both be able to place your trust in each other.
You’re already missing out on so much here, things other people take for
granted.
On the other hand, I’m certain I’d never have gotten as far with Peter, because
I think I’d need to feel very close to a person before I could share my
thoughts. I’d want to have the feeling that he understood me through and
through, even if I didn’t say much. For this reason it would have to be
someone I felt was intellectually superior to me, and that isn’t the case with
Peter. But I can imagine your feeling close to him.
So there’s no need for you to reproach yourself because you think you’ te
taking something I was entitled to; nothing could be further from the truth.
You and Peter have everything to gain by your friendship.
My answer:
Dearest Margot,
Your letter was extremely kind, but I still don’t feel completely happy about
the situation, and I don’t think I ever will.
At the moment, Peter and I don’t trust each other as much as you seem to
think. It’s just that when you’re standing beside an open window at twthght,
you can say more to each other than in bright sunshine. It’s also easier to
whisper your feelings than to shout them from the rooftops. I think you’ve
begun to feel a kind of sisterly affection for Peter and would like to help him,
just as much as I would. Perhaps you’ll be able to do that someday, though
that’s not the kind of trust we have in mind. I believe that trust has to corne
from both sides; I also think that’s the reason why Father and I have never
really grown so close. But let’s not talk about it anymore. If there’s anything
you still want to discuss, please write, because it’s easier for me to say what I
mean as on paper than face-to-face. You know how le much I admire you,
and only hope that some of your goodness and Father’s goodness will rub off
on me, because, in that sense, you two are a lot alike.
Yours, Anne
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22,1944
Dearest Kitty,
I received this letter last night from Margot: Dear Anne,
After your letter of yesterday I have the unpleasant feeling that your
conscience bothers you whenever you go to Peter’s to work or talk; there’s
really no reason for that.
In my heart, I know there’s someone who deserves t my trust (as I do his),
and I wouldn’t be able to tolerate Peter in his place.
However, as you wrote, I do think of Peter as a kind of brother. . . a younger
brother; we’ve been sending out feelers, and a brotherly and sisterly affection
mayor may not develop at some later date, but it’s certainly not reached that
stage yet. So there’s no need for you to feel sorry for me. Now that you’ve
found companionship, enjoy it as much as you can.
In the meantime, things are getting more and more wonderful here. I think,
Kitty, that true love may be developing in the Annex. All those jokes about
marrying Peter if we stayed here long enough weren’t so silly after all. Not
that I’m thinking of marrying him, mind you. I don’t even know what he’ll be
like when he grows up. Or if we’ll even love each other enough to get
married.
I’m sure now that Peter loves me too; I just don’t know in what way. I can’t
figure out if he wants only a good friend, or if he’s attracted to me as a girl or
as a sister. When he said I always helped him when his parents were arguing,
I was tremendously happy; it was one step toward making me believe in his
friendship. I asked him yesterday what he’d do if there were a dozen Annes
who kept popping in to see him. His answer was: “If they were all like you, it
wouldn’t be so bad.” He’s extremely hospitable, and I think he really likes to
see me. Mean- while, he’s been working hard at learning French, even
studying in bed until ten-fifteen.
Oh, when I think back to Saturday night, to our words, our voices, I feel
satisfied with myself for the very first time; what I mean is, I’d still say the
same and wouldn’t want to change a thing, the way I usually do. He’s so
handsome, whether he’s smthng or just sitting still. He’s so sweet and good
and beautiful. I think what surprised him most about me was when he
discovered that I’m not at all the superficial, worldly Anne I appear to be, but
a dreamer, like he is, with just as many troubles!
Last night after the dinner dishes, I waited for him to ask me to stay upstairs.
But nothing happened; I went away.
He came downstairs to tell Dussel it was time to listen to the radio and hung
around the bathroom for a while, but when Dussel took too long, he went
back upstairs. He paced up and down his room and went to bed early.
The entire evening I was so restless I kept going to the bathroom to splash
cold water on my face. I read a bit, daydreamed some more, looked at the
clock and waited, waited, waited, all the while listening to his foot- steps. I
went to bed early, exhausted.
Tonight I have to take a bath, and tomorrow?
Tomorrow’s so far away!
Yours, Anne M. Frank