I recently read Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl. It was very educational and I wanted to summarize what I learned. So, I thought I'd share a blog post on it! I hope this post is educational to you as well and if you get a chance, I recommend reading Anne's diary for yourself!
A brief overview of WWII:
Anne wrote her diary during the second world war. Her 1st entry is on Sunday, June 14, 1942. By this time Hitler was the leader of the Nazi party. Hitler believed that Germans (like himself) were superior to any other race of people. Hitler was especially anti-Jews. On January 30th, 1933 (Anne was 3 and a half at that time) Hitler was made the Chancellor of Germany. By March that same year Hitler gained complete authority over Germany and the only political party remaining (or at least allowed) in Germany were the Nazis. The Gestapo (the secret police of the Nazi Germany) were founded in April 1933. It wasn't long before Hitler banned Jews from public offices, the civil service, teaching in schools, or working in journalism, radio, movies, or the theater. Slowly, the Jews were banned from more and more things like practicing medicine or law, attending certain schools, intermarrying with Aryans, etc. The Nazis were cruel and ruthless, especially to any who opposed them. In 1934 Anne Frank and her family moved to Amsterdam to get away from the Nazi persecution. For a few years they lived a normal life. But, in 1940 the Germans invaded Holland. At first Anne was forced to attend a Jewish school instead of going to Montessori School. But other than that, life was normal for the Franks. But, her father saw the way that the Nazis were heading. In 1941 they began to round up Jews in Amsterdam and take them to camps. On July 5, 1942, the Germans ordered for Anne's older sister, Margot, who was 16 at the time, to be deported. The next day the Frank family went into hiding. Anne was 13 years old.
Summary of Anne's diary:
Anne's diary begins explaining that she received her journal for her 13th birthday. She names her diary Kitty and writes to it in the form of letter writing, as if she is writing to her best friend. At the beginning of the journal her life is pretty normal, but not too long later her and her family are forced to go into hiding. Anne writes to Kitty telling her much about their circumstances. She calls there hiding place "The Secret Annex." The Frank family is also joined by the Van Daan family (they have 1 son, Peter). (Later on another man, Dussel, joins them as well. ) She often writes of how no one understands her and how she longs to have someone to talk to. She looks up to her father, Otto Frank, but does not entirely get along with or appreciate her mother. Her and Margot get along fine, but they do not tell each other everything. At first Anne does not like Peter at all. But later they begin to become friends. Their friendship may have included a bit of romance, but often Anne writes as if she did not love him as a boyfriend. Much happens in Anne's diary, and it is hard to summarize. There is much we can learn from this book. Anne write a little about what is going on in the world, with the war and politics. But much of her diary is focused on her personal life. Anne, like most young teenage girls, often writes about things like wanting a friend with whom she could talk, finding her identity, and wondering about parents and children's relationships with one another.
My takeaways:
- One thing that stood out to me was how slowly and sometimes unnoticeably the Nazis took over . . . at first there was little difference. But slowly more and more rights and liberties began to be taken away. Even once the Franks were in hiding not much was different. They had to be careful not to make to much noise, but they had food, clothes, even books and gifts. But as time went on their food become more and more scarce and the few clothes they had began to grow small. It doesn't take long for tyranny to gain control. We must always be on guard and fight for liberty!
- Another takeaway for me was how we all long for friendship. God designed us this way. God has given us the gift of friendship and fellowship. And when we don't have that with someone, we often long to be known, understood, and loved. Anne often wrote of how she longed to have a friend to talk to and tell everything. She wanted a mother who loved her and understood her, and not one who seemed to always be ridiculing and correcting her. God created us as relational beings. (Ecclesiastes talks about how 2 are better than one, at the beginning of time God said that it was not good that man should be alone, and throughout the Bible we see the effect and importance of fellowship, encouragement, prayer, discipleship, unity, witnessing, and worshiping God together.) I think the best thing about all of this is that even if you are all alone on a deserted island, you can have this friendship! We can come before God and pour out our hearts to Him at any time and He will hear us! (See Jn. 15:13-14, Ps. 62:8, Ps. 10:17) He is the most faithful Friend we can ever have!
- Another thing I also liked was Anne's love and wonder for the beauty of nature. God's creation, although no longer perfect because of sin, is beautiful and spectacular. God is a very powerful, magnificent, and marvelous Creator!
- One last main point about Anne's diary is the fact that religion was important to her, but yet she wrote once that she did not view it as essential. This is sadly the mindset of many people today. They think "religion is fine for you maybe, but it's not necessary for me." (See my post Religions Not For Me) The first thing to realize here is that when most people hear the word "religion" they think of a belief in a cosmic power or god that follows a bunch or rules or laws to earn something. But Christianity is different. We believe in the one true God, the Creator of the universe and Savior of our souls. He is not just some cosmic power or energy source. He is the all-powerful, all-knowing, Sovereign King of the universe! The second thing to realize is that religion is not just a nice thing to have for some people. If you do not put your faith and trust fully in Jesus Christ, you cannot be saved. You will spend eternity separated from God in hell. This isn't just a "crutch" to help you get through life, as some people claim. This is a matter of life or death; eternal life or death. This isn't just an opinion or conviction, this is important and essential. And the third thing to realize is that Christianity isn't just another religion like the rest of them. There are 2 main differences between Christianity and every other religion:
1. The first is how they view Jesus. Most other religions or beliefs view Jesus as a good man or teacher. But Christianity views Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. We view Him as the Bible displays Him, the King over all! Jesus is our Savior. His perfect sacrifice for us on the cross was enough. We don't have to continue His work by doing good works to be saved. He was perfect, His sacrifice was perfect, His salvation to us is complete!
2. The second main difference between Christianity and other religions is the fact that you don't have to earn your salvation! Most, if not every, other religion believes that you must be and do good to gain a reward (whether they believe that reward is heaven, reincarnation, karma, etc.). But the truth is that we CANNOT earn our salvation. No one can. To earn your salvation you would have to 100% perfect. And no one is, or can be. But the Bible tells us that we are saved by God's grace through our faith in Christ! All we must do is repent and put our faith and trust in Jesus! This will cause us to want to live for Christ and do good works for His glory, but we won't have to do good works in order to be saved.
One way to help picture this is that our faith is the roots, and that is what saves us. And the good works are the fruit, a result of our faith, but not what saves us.
Ephesians 2:8-10
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
The rest of Anne's life story:
Anne Frank and the other members of the "secret annex" were in hiding for 2 years. On August 4th, 1944, the Gestapo invaded their hiding place and arrested all 8 of those in hiding. They were sent to Westerbork, a camp where Jews were held before being deported. After being deported to Auschwitz Otto Frank was separated from the rest of his family. Anne and many other Jews experienced many things that no 15 year old girl should ever have to experience: hard work in awful conditions, locked at night in crowded barracks, seeing many people die and be taken away to be gassed, being fed scarce and bad food, seeing smoke from the crematories, being harassed by the SS, etc., etc.
One survivor told of how Anne cried while watching a group of gypsy girls being taken away to the crematory and another time while watching Hungarian children waiting half a day in the rain to be gassed. These are horrific scenes none of us can even imagine having to see!
Anne died peacefully of typhus in February of 1945. She would have been 16 that June. Her father, Otto Frank was the only member of the secret annex to survive. Late on, he published an edited version of Anne's diary, following her dream that she would one day be a journalist/writer and that she would "keep on living even after (she) die(d)".
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