A Glimpse of ANNE FRANK's Diary

 Anne Frank is one of the personalities in literature among many others that is etched in my memory since high school, though a bit vague, since we didn't really dig in that deep into her work. Or could be I wasn't paying attention that much, or my memory isn't that reliable. Either way, I remember her name and a glimpse of her diary. I remember that my literature teacher told us that she wrote the diary in hiding because it was WORLD WAR 2. 

Now that I have grown into a fully ripe adult, going back into that memory is not enough. So I have to answer the questions running in my head:

1. How old was Anne when she wrote the diary?

    Anne was 13 years old when she wrote her diary onto a checkered notebook gifted to her on her birthday.

2. Why did she address her entries to "Kitty"?

    She wanted her diary to be a friend and not just any piece of paper bound together filled with teenage musings.

3. How did the diary survive and eventually got famous?

    The diary was retrieved by two of the Frank family supporters. They then gave it to Otto Frank, Anne's father, when he finally returned from the concentration camp. Otto then went to extreme lengths to get his daughter's work published.

__________________________________________

Diary Entry: September 21, 1942

"Dear Kitty,

Now that I'm writing to you regularly, I like the idea more and more. 
It's so strange, but when I write, I feel as if I'm talking to a friend, 
a very close friend who understands everything. 

I'm going to start from now on by writing down everything that comes into my head, without worrying about whether it's silly or not. Up until now, I've just written things down as they happened, 
but from today on, I want to write letters. It's much nicer, and it feels 
as if someone is actually listening to me.

Yours, Anne"

                           __________________________________________

 

This specific text is considered part of "Version A" (her original, unedited diary entries)

before she began rewriting it into "Version B" for future publication.

You can learn more about how her father compiled these versions into

the book we read today directly on the

Anne Frank House overview of her complete works

Frank, A. (1995). The diary of a young girl: The definitive edition 

(O. H. Frank & M. Pressler, Eds.; S. Massotty, Trans.). Doubleday. 

(Original work published 1947).