Anne Frank Tagebuch

Finally I managed to get a copy of The Diaries of Anne Frank in German and I started reading it in its original language too :)

Considered an Anti-Nazi document that every school pupil has to read here in Germany, he book is the diary of Anne Frank, (1929-1945) a thirteen years old girl who comes from a Jewish German family in Frankfurt and then with all the horrors that the jews were facing after the third Reich lead by Adolf Hitler gained the power in 1933, they escaped to Holland in the same year and lived quite nicely in Amsterdam but not for too long as the Nazi forces were soon envading Holland.

In July 1942 the family had to hide in a secret place behind a book shelf in the office of her father. The secret place or as called the Achterhuis was a small place at the rear of the building that was entered from a landing above the father's office. The door to the Achterhuis was covered by a bookcase to ensure it remained undiscovered. Anne wrote her diary for two years while hiding, she received this diary book as a gift for her thirteenth Birthday, she started by describing herself, her family and friends, her school life, boys she flirted with and the places she liked to visit in her neighborhood. Her life was that of a typical schoolgirl at that time, she also refered to the changes that her life as a Jew had to go through like wearing the yellow David star in public, not being allowed to go to normal school but shoud attend Jewish school, not being allowed to use public transportation and that they should buy things only from Jewish sellers and go to Jewish Hairdressers and dentists...etc.

The diary ends abruptly in August 1944 as the family was discovered and sent to the concentration camp. Anne died of Typhus in March 1945. Years later the diary was discovered by the father who survived and in 1947, the diary was published in Holland and Germany and then in the rest of Europe. The book was published in the USA in 1952 and soon it was translated to many languages and was one of the books that got a worldwide recognition as well as being one of the documents that show the barbarity of the Nazis at that horrible time. In 1959 a successful movie was made based on the book and a play that was written about it and the film won three Academy Awards and was nominated for another Five.

From 1970 till 1993, several trials have been done to deny the accuracy, genuinity and correctness of the diary and some reached the point of claiming that Anne Frank has never been present, knowing that it was mainly an instrument for Anti Nazi and Jewish sympathy. Finally in 1998, the Amsterdam District Court forbade any further denial of the authenticity of the diary.

Now the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam is opened to the public and is considered one of the main sights in Amstrerdam, illustrating one of the darkest parts in the history of Europe.

The book is prohibited in Egypt and the Middle East and I have no idea if there is an Arabic translation for it but I bought the book and I started to read it in German, knowing that it has been written by a thirteen years old girl, I hope it will be simple enough as my German is not that good to read literature.