The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank!!!

            I am done reading Anne Frank's "The Diary of a Young Girl". This book has been published with various titles and in almost 60 different languages in all over the world. Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who hid herself with her family during the World War II wrote a diary which was found later on from the spot and handed over to her father. Later it was decided that the book should get published as people need to know what Jewish suffered. Unfortunately, Anne Frank wasn't alive when her book got released and the world read her words which she wrote in her moments of privacy. This is the first time when I have read something that is related to World War II hence I had great expectations from the book. But unfortunately, all the hopes of reading something that is epic has been shattered as I didn't find the book interesting. Many of you might say that I am heartless as I am unable to understand the plight of the girl and her likes who hid themselves for month just to save themselves but then, I wasn't reading this book to sympathize with someone. I was reading it to learn about some accounts and events during World War II and what I got to read is a diary of an average teen girl who talked much about her emotions than the situation her country went through during 1942-44. 

            During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, Anne Frank received a diary as one of her presents on her 13th birthday. She began to write in it on June 14, 1942, two days later, and twenty two days before going into hiding with her father Otto, mother Edith, older sister Margot, and another family, Hermann van Pels, his wife Auguste, and their teenage son Peter. The group went into hiding in the sealed-off upper rooms of the annex of her father's office building in Amsterdam. The rooms were concealed behind a hidden door. Mrs. van Pels' dentist, Fritz Pfeffer, joined them four months later. In the published version, names were changed: the van Pels are known as the Van Daans and Fritz Pfeffer as Mr. Dussel. With the assistance of a group of Otto Frank's trusted colleagues, they remained hidden for two years and one month.

             Anne described to "Kitty", as she addressed her diary, her close relationship with her father, her lack of daughterly love for her mother, with whom she felt she had nothing in common, and her admiration for her sister's intelligence and sweet nature. She did not much like the others initially, particularly Auguste van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer (the latter shared her room). She was at first unimpressed by the quiet Peter; she herself was something of a chatterbox (a source of irritation to some of the others). As time went on, however, she and Peter became very close, though she remained uncertain in what direction their relationship would develop.

They were betrayed in August 1944, which resulted in their deportation to Nazi concentration camps. Of the group of eight, only Otto Frank survived the war. Anne died in Bergen-Belsen from typhus in early March, about two weeks before the prisoners were liberated by British troops in April 1945.

               Coming to my take, I would say that if you really want to read something related to the same event, try some other book but definitely not this one. I am still surprised as to how this book is seen as one of the bests of 20th century. Whatever, what I found in the book was nothing but a normal teen girl writing her experiences on daily, weekly and sometimes on monthly basis. It has almost everything that we feel when we our teenagers- the avoidance by one of our parents, the less understanding with parents, little jealousy with siblings, a crush on guy-next-door and a doubt whether we are straight, bisexual or homosexual. Then, after talking about all these experiences, the diary-writer also tells some of her experiences related to the World War but seriously speaking, its not a bit interesting or something that can hold you back to complete this book in a sitting. It took me 3 days to complete because every time I picked it up, I wanted to keep it back in the half way as there's nothing that attracted me towards it. 

 That's all.

 Thanks.

 ABHILASH RUHELA - VEERU