Customer Reviews
A good example of what it means to be a Refugee. 
2008-07-17
I am presently living like a refugee, so I can say from experience this is a good way to understand what it means to be stuck in a room for four years, having done that myself.
This is what happens when wars get out of hand. Required reading for government workers.
Another School Reading, Re-Read As An Adult 
2008-06-22
Sometimes you wonder to what purpose a person releases the details of a love ones life after death. This is just such a case. I will admit, I did not read the book as instructed in school, or many of the books forced upon us. As an adult, I went back and read many of them to see what I had missed (like the Red Badge of Courage, Uncle Toms Cabine, Tom Sawyer, etc.). This book from the hype would seem to be a literary masterpiece, rather, what it turns out to be is a rudementarry, and purposely selected piece of a little girls journal. If the purpose of the book was to delve into the mind of a teenage girl of the 1940's who does not get on well with her family or others, and seem a bit spoiled, it is a glowing success. The problem here is that it is meant to showcase a little girl in hiding from the Nazi's during WWII. To this it fails in that it merely touches on those issues (other than the ad nauseum complaints that Anne Frank makes about her inconveniences). I also get the feeling that this was severly edited to make the father look better than he was (in that he released the book), while making everyone else the villan. I guess this book is timeless in that most teenagers today have the same rants and raves. If you are reading it looking for historical perspective of a Jewish teen in hiding, you will not get much more than the backdrop which leaks through every now and again, since all the rest could truly be the rants of a teen of any generation. I know this review will be unpopular since this book is considered a modern day classic from our generation, I just feel there are numerous books that are far better at demostrating the attrocities, and difficulties of living through World War II, and going into hiding as a Jew during that time period. I was dissapointed.
Profound 2008-06-18
I am probably being redundant when I say this, but this was a profound book. This was a rare look into the life of a Jew living in hiding during Nazi occupation that shaped the worlds understanding of this dreadful persecution. Anne begins as a spoiled and restless child, but her time in hiding definitely changes her. She becomes more precocious and reflective, sharing her insightful thoughts with her diary. She comments on her parents, her living conditions, her learning pursuits, politics and the war, her desire to be loved, among many other things. Of course, there is great conflict in the "Secret Annex" with eight people living in such close quarters for over two years, but it reveals the fragility of human nature when confronted with such tension. Anne's descriptions allow the reader to easily imagine their plight and her writing matures throughout. Anne's diary is a timeless and necessary piece of literature. The tragedy of her death is nothing compared to her devotion to humanity.
Anne Frank .. the girl who saved me 
2008-06-13
I was in a training course sitting and drawing roses in my note book, the instructor - out of the blue -decided to choose the one girl with no attention to stand in the middle of the class room and tell a story that will grab everycody's attention. he wanted to see if we can actually make the right choice. I was really surprised and nervous. i stood there and talked about the one story that grabed my attention lately specialy with the fact that i just came from Amsteredam. I talked about Anne and her story, her diary and the amazing sense of words and expressions she had. I talked to them about my passion towards her days and her hidden Annexe she hide in for almost 2 years. everybody listened and were totally into the story and me . The book is amazing, its a different kind of diary and different type of memoir. Its really an amazing story for an amazing young story teller.
Her Legacy Lives on in Her Diary! 2008-06-12
Anne Frank was an aspiring writer, a young lady, and Jewish girl who was in hiding in the attic in Amsterdam, Netherlands during the horrors of World War II. Anne's personal diary resurrects the actual horrors of the war and the holocaust which claimed her life as well as her mother, sister, and other residents in the attic. Life was hard enough as a Jewish girl in Hitler's time, it was practically impossible to survive much less thrive. This diary explains how Anne coped with daily horrors and daily living situation being unable to speak above a whisper rather than not be heard. Her legacy is her diary and it humanizes the inhuman experiences that harmed so many innocent people regardless of religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. Anne writes candidly about her struggles with a sense of optimism. We can only imagine how she survived and thrived in the attic despite her circumstances. You never get the sense that she blamed the world or others for her situation. She has this sense of optimism and hope all through out despite her fate as she died in Bergen-Belsen right before liberation. I wonder if she had lived that the world would never get to know this fascinating young girl as she transformed into a young lady of so much promise and hope. She gives us all hope that life is not always doomed but it's how you look at it.
Ignorance among our population. 2008-06-11
Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank's remarkable diary has since become a world classic -- a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit. In 1942, with Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, they and another family lived cloistered in the "Secret Annex" of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and amusing, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.
Definitive Edition 2008-05-29
I read Ann Frank Diary Of A Young Girl a long time ago and I still have it.
I thought that in this definitive edition,there would be much more text and much more new revelations.
In this edition,her writings about her sexual curiosity,her unpleasant feelings toward her mother and others is included along with a few added paragraphs that were omitted in the original version.
Comparing the first version and The Critical edition and The Definitive addition doesn't make lots of sense to me.That's enough on "the editions".
Back to Ann Frank's Diary, the one thing that always gets me misty eyed is that she is so young and that her attitude and outlook is so happy and hopeful.She was an optimist.
I know there are less popular journals written about this period and the suffering,but somehow,it seems fateful that Ann's would be the one to become a legend.Even the fact that there exists a brief moving film clip of her out on the balcony waving, when at that time there wasn't much personal family filming,that seems to reinforce my thinking that hers was a purpose of example.
In such a short life,she suffered everything you could think of.Isolation,no friends,little food and finally starvation,disease and death in those camps.
Her pre-war life was lavish,both mother and father were wealthy and Ann seemed spoiled and had many friends making it all the more harder to go from wealthy and popular school girl to a life in hiding,with limited food and clothing and fresh air.Instead she looks to the future and herhope of freedom after the war is over.
Other children might become extremely depressed and feel doomed and hopeless.
Her father making sure the children continued their studies of algebra,language and providing them with books and other things to keep the children must have helped alot.Her flirtation and deepening feelings for Peter probably helped her cope too.
When I read things like "she was nothing special" and "it's only because her diary was found" that she became celebrated makes me wonder how people that say those things would manage in the same situation.
Anyway, I'm glad schools have children read the book and learn about the insane,dismal consequences of categorizing people of any race and religious belief.
The unbelievable and unthinkable did happen and I'm grateful that Ann had written her journal and that it is still so widely read.
one of the world's best pieces of literature 2008-05-29
[...] I recall the honest Anne Frank, whose youthful truths have been denied many times, faulting her father for overlooking her grievances. "He failed to see," she jots down in the last few entries of that fateful journal, "that this struggle to triumph over my difficulties was more important to me than anything else. I didn't want to hear about `typical adolescent problems,' or `other girls,' or `you'll grow out of it.' I didn't want to be treated the same as all-the-other-girls, but as Anne-in-her-own-right" [...] --from "Recollections"
i'm very unsure 
2008-05-18
i'm just commenting on the person who claims that anyone who says this diary is fake...Is totally disrespecting all people who suffered in the holocaust bla bla...
That's unbelievable, I must say i have to question the authenticity of this "diary"...Does that make me a nazi, an anti-semite? to most people it would which is totally stupid in my mind.
Anyways, the textbook view of a concentration camp...Prisoners were sent from trains to the camp where they'd go through several rooms and then have to shower because there was an outbreak inside the camp...Mainly the men who looked suitable to work were selected to labour until they couldn't keep themselves up while the rest (mainly women and children) were sent to the showers which was actually a large gas chamber...3000 people would be crammed into a room of about 240 square metres and then 30 minutes after the gas was released...SS guards would walk in the chamber while eating and smoking to get the bodies cremated.
Now maybe something is wrong here, Wouldn't Anne Frank be in that mass group sent straight to the gas chamber?
so maybe this is an authentic piece, but in my eyes it most likely is not.
A Must Read for Any Teenager Today 2008-05-13
While daydreaming in class, do you ever place yourself in the shoes of another of another thirteen year old? Perhaps another teenager in a different historical era? "The Diary of Anne Frank" would allow you to do just that. This diary tells the story of a thirteen year old Jewish girl, forced to go into hiding during the Holocaust with her family of four. Making entries every day, Anne writes of her life in hiding; documenting her feelings of love, the noises of gunshots outside her house and the changes her body and spirit continue to experience as she develops into a teenager. She writes of normal "becoming a teenager obstacles" such as her parents treating her unfairly, the other family always picking on her and a lonely existence in the confined space. This book does a splendid job of describing the drama that enfolds with eight people living in tight quarters. Just as many of you may have felt trapped in your teenage life, Anne's is magnified in the "Secret Annex" of a room.
I believe that this book is more real than any other narrative or memoir can be due to Anne's innocence without worrying about the outside critics. It leaves itself for you to easily empathize with the hardships of Anne with her honest accounts of observations, memories, feelings and troubles any teenager experiences, in addition to the complexity of her tragic situation. I highly recommend this book to any teenager who hopes to understand life's hardest lessons. If there was one negative about the book, it would be the repetitive nature of some of the entries. Many of the entries seem quite monotonous, but isn't this true of most teenagers' lives? Although this book is 304 pages, it is a quick read with it unlikely you would want to put it down. Published in 1993 by Bantam, it still applies this day to any teenager.
