The Diary of a Young Girl

Just finished this short auto-biography of Anne Frank's experience of living in the Secret Annex and so many thoughts are running through my head.

Firstly, it tells the complexity of emotions one goes through during puberty- the loneliness, the feeling that no one understands you, the yearning for companionship, especially of the opposite sex. I hope J will pass through it with the feeling that her parents understand and support her, and not wind up seeking solace in the arms of strangers. This is no easy task as by all accounts, Otto Frank was a great dad but Anne had no feeling of closeness to him.

Through the entries we also see Anne's maturity, strength in character, depth in thought and ability to bring across these thoughts clearly. It is really a pity that her life ended prematurely, and in such tragic circumstances.

The planned extermination of a particular breed of people is senseless. Even if there were some bad nuts, well there are bad nuts in all races, creeds and religions. Nothing justifies such killing. What's shocking is that a whole nation either became involved or turned a blind eye to the killing, which shows how broken humans can be.  Even worse, there are holocaust deniers who try to claim that such events never occurred. We have to constantly educate the younger generations, to prevent such things from ever occurring again.

Lastly, war is a terrible affair that breaks up families and kills not just the fighting soldiers but also innocent civilians. Reading of the fear, hunger, desperation, it takes great courage, wits and luck to survive and I doubt that I may make it through if I was alive then.