On my table, The Diary of Anne Frank, Plato’s Phaedrus

 

I’ve got The diary of Anne Frank in a second-hand book shop about a week ago. For several weeks, I have been working on Plato’s Phaedrus. Apart from Plato and the Greeks, I always read some book written in English. 

I’m just about ready to put on my blog the first part of the Phaedrus, but Anne Frank’s diary comes first.

Anne Frank received her diary on 12 June 1942, as a birthday present.

On Saturday, 20 June 1942, she wrote in her Diary: “Writing in a diary is really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I’ve never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. I feel like writing, and I have an even greater need to get all kinds of things off my chest.

…

After May 1940 the good times were few and far between: first there was the war, then the capitulation and then the arrival of the Germans, which is when the trouble started for the Jews. Our freedom was severely restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees: Jews were required to wear a yellow star; Jews were required to turn in their bicycles; Jews were forbidden to use trams; Jews were forbidden to ride in cars, even their own; Jews were required to do their shopping between 3.00 and 5.00 p.m.; Jews were required to frequent only Jewish-owned barbershops and beauty salons; Jews were forbidden to be out on the streets between 8.00 p.m. and 6.00 a.m.; Jews were forbidden to go to theatres, cinemas or any other form of entertainment; Jews were forbidden to use swimming pools, tennis courts, hocky fields or any other athletic fields; Jews were forbidden to go rowing; Jews were forbidden to take part in any athletic activity in public; Jews were forbidden to sit in their gardens or those of their friends after 8.00 p.m.; Jews were forbidden to visit Christians in their homes; Jews were required to attend Jewish schools, etc. You couldn’t do this and you couldn’t do that, but life went on. Jacque always said to me, ‘I don’t dare do anything any more, ’cause I’m afraid it’s not allowed’.”

On Monday, 15 June 1942 Anne wrote of Jacque: ‘Jacqueline van Maarsen is supposedly my best friend, but I’ve never had a real friend.’ Her diary became her real friend. She opened the diary on 12 June 1942 with the words: ‘I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.’

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In 1999, at Bergen-Belsen, a stone was erected for Anne and Margot, Anne’s older sister. The Hebrew inscription on the stone reads: ‘The spirit of man is the light of the Lord’.