The Diary of a Young Girl

The famous diary of a Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam, providing a powerful firsthand account of the Holocaust that has become one of the most important historical documents.

Thirteen-year-old Anne Frank began keeping a diary just weeks before her family went into hiding in the secret annex above her father's business in Amsterdam. For over two years, she documented daily life in hiding, her thoughts about the war, her relationships with the other residents, and her dreams for the future.

Anne's diary is remarkable not only as a historical document but as a work of literature, revealing a gifted writer with sharp observations about human nature and remarkable emotional intelligence. Her voice develops over the course of the diary from that of a typical teenager concerned with friends and school to a young woman grappling with profound questions about humanity, evil, and survival.

The diary's power lies in its combination of the universal and the particular. Anne's concerns about her appearance, her conflicts with her mother, and her first experiences with love are recognizable to any teenager, yet they're set against the backdrop of systematic persecution and genocide.

Anne's relationship with Peter van Pels, the teenage son of another family in hiding, provides some of the diary's most poignant moments. Their tentative romance represents hope and normalcy in circumstances that are anything but normal, showing how young people seek connection and meaning even in the darkest times.

The diary's treatment of moral questions is sophisticated for a teenage writer. Anne struggles to understand how ordinary people can become complicit in evil, yet she maintains faith in human goodness despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Her famous statement that "people are really good at heart" reflects both naivety and profound moral courage.

The diary's abrupt ending, when the secret annex is discovered and its residents arrested, reminds readers of the tragedy that befell Anne and millions of others. Yet the survival of her writing ensures that her voice continues to speak against hatred and intolerance.

The Diary of a Young Girl has been translated into dozens of languages and has educated countless readers about the Holocaust. It remains one of the most powerful testimonies to the human spirit's ability to maintain hope and dignity in the face of unimaginable evil.