Roar Post#2 [Pages 68-136]

SUMMARY

In this section of the book, we see that the Frank family and van Daan family

 (Dubbed the Annex family) have allowed for another person to join their hiding place because the Jews were being treated worst as the days go by and plus, they had enough room and food. His name is Alfred Dussel, a dentist, and he is known to be a quiet and refined man. When he got settled in, the Annex family gave him a set of typewritten rules and regulations for the Secret Annex. It was called “ Prospectus and Guide to the Secret Annex”, subtitled “ A Unique Facility for the Temporary Accommodation of Jews and Other Dispossessed Persons. This document was very thorough, going through everything a newcomer needed to know about the Annex life. It touched upon how the bathroom was structured, when to use the radio, the importance of observing each other’s rest hours (which seem to be crucial in case an emergency occurs and you need to wake an Annex member up), rules for entertainment, obligations and responsibilities, and even codes of conduct. During the first few days of Mr.Dussel’s stay, he has been providing them with information of the world outside of the Annex. Many news and stories were very troublesome. Anne says that despite all of the bad things that were happening, the family should still strive to be happy. However, sometimes she admits that she feels very guilty when she is cheerful, because there are hundreds of Jews being mistreated. Nevertheless, life goes on, with bad things and good things happening. They have been using too much electricity and now had it cut off for 14 days. But on the bright side, St.Nicholas Day (which I assume to be Christmas) went by splendidly, and it was the first time that the Frank family had celebrated this day. Going back to Mr.Dussel, he wasn’t all he was cracked out to be. In fact, he was rather strict and uptight. It is not long before Mr.Dussel develops a rivalry with Anne, since Anne encompasses a lot of the things that he dislikes. She is extremely talkative and opinionated, and Mr.Dussel does not like that.

            Anne is noting that the city outside of the Annex is absolutely horrible. She sees that poor and helpless people are being captured sporadically during the night and day (it doesn’t mention who though) and it is essentially destroying the families. It is pretty obvious at this point how much involved Holland is in the war now. People are mortified, because they know that they can die any minute. Once again, Anne states that the Annex family is quite fortunate to the other Jews suffering, and she feels as though they are so selfish about how they are talking about what to spend their money on after the war when they should really be using it to help people in need.

            Moving on to less broad problems, Anne is once again having quarrels with people in the Annex. She says that: when she talks, people mistake it as showing off. When she remains silent she is ridiculous, when she answers she is insolent, when she has a good idea, she is cunning (probably in a bad way), when she’s tired she’s lazy, when she eats a lot she is selfish and many more acts of prejudice on their part. This is not true, and Anne says that she does do her best to please everyone, but it is impossible for her to be happy one day and hostile the next.

            One day in the Annex, the Frank family was sitting together peacefully when all of a sudden, Peter came in and whispered to the Father that someone was fiddling with the door to the Annex. Everyone was extremely afraid that someone could find out about their hiding place, and if that were to happen, the consequences would be horrendous. Fortunately, nothing happened after that, and the Annex family assumed that burglars were in the building, but left when they heard footsteps in an otherwise quiet building. After that little incident, the Westertoren bells stopped chiming, so now they cannot tell the time anymore. More bad news for Annex family is the fact that their friend Bep has the flu, Mr.Kleiman has to stay in bed for at least three weeks due to gastrointestinal hemorrhaging, and Mr.Voskuijl is suspecting an ulcer and has to get surgery. In addition to that, the Annex family has been witnessing a number of dogfights between the English and German fighter planes and the bombings have been keeping the family wide awake for a number of nights. Talking about more happy events, it was recently Anne’s birthday, and she received a poem from her father, as well as a big book on Greek and Roman mythology and other lovely presents.

            Another break-in had occurred in the building where the Annex was located, and this time both he warehouse door was open and the street door was opened. What happened was that burglars broke in and they stole 2 cashboxes containing 40 guilders, blank checkbooks, and coupons for 330 pounds of sugar (a terrible loss). With all of these problems occurring around them, Anne longs for the war to be over so that she can go back to school.

            Anne has developed a new tactic for dealing with the Annex members. She has decided to talk to herself more during meals than to others. This serves the dual purpose of not annoying the others and also by making Anne not become annoyed by their opinions.

QUOTE

“ I’m terribly ungrateful, Kitty, I know, but when I’ve been scolded for the umpteenth time and have all these other woes to think about as well, my heads begins to reel!” (Frank 74).

REACTION

First of all, I want to talk about my overall thoughts after reading this section of the book. I truly admire her honesty because she doesn’t try to be someone she isn’t. If she is feeling grouchy one day and she comes into contact with an Annex member, she will still be grouchy. She is definitely not like her mother, who will virtually ignore Anne for two days if she is mad. Then one day she would forget about the entire thing and treat Anne normally again. I guess it isn’t entirely bad because as the saying goes, time heals all wounds, and no matter how small the wound is, sometimes we all need some amount of time to blow off some steam. Personally, for me, whenever I get mad at someone, I do ignore them like Anne’s mother does. I tend to sleep it off. When I wake up, I usually will not feel that angry anymore. Now I want to change topics and talk about the internal conflict that I noticed Anne battling an internal conflict in this section. I’ve noticed that she mentions this several times in this section. She doesn’t know whether to feel sad about her fellow Jews being persecuted or to feel happy whenever something in her life does bring her joy (like receiving new books). There are pros and cons of doing each. For example, by being sad you are showing sympathy and compassion for those who are suffering under the Nazi regime. However, you can see that being sad all the time probably isn’t that good for your health and it probably won’t be accomplishing anything besides the showing of compassion. On the other hand, when you are happy, obviously you are happy, which is a good thing. In times like this, when the world is at war, your life is in danger, and you are spending every second of life trapped in a secret building, you need a smile on your face to keep hope alive. However, there is a con of being happy in times like these as well, and Anne also ponders on this, and this is probably the main reason why Anne feels so conflicted. The con is that you are being selfish, because why should others like you suffer while you are happy and laugh your troubles away? Now, different people could interpret it different ways. If it were up to me, I would just be happy and grateful for the fortunate situation that I am in. But overall, I guess you should be both sad and glad at different times, and in moderation as well. I would just say you should never be indifferent, because that is really bad.

            Now let’s talk more about Anne’s writing style. It is still exceptionally good. Once again I am baffled by the fact that she has such a broad vocabulary. She has a very keen eye, noticing many minute details with exceptional detail. Also, something new that I have noticed is that she has a sense of humor. It is not a laugh out loud sense a humor, but rather, cleverness with writing that is funny as well. For example, on page 97, she writes, “ Dearest Kitty, I’m not really in the mood for pranks (see the date)” (Frank 97). When I looked at the date and saw that it said Thursday, April 1, 1943, I have to admit that I laughed, and found it to be a very clever type of writing. Another example of her literary sense of humor was when she talked about how the food at the Annex was bad and she said that this was the food to eat if you wanted to diet. Since we are on the topic of writing style I want to say that I noticed in some instances that Anne writes about herself in 3^rd person. Instead of saying I, she just says Anne, for example one time she writes, “Margot and Mother do the dishes, Mr. and Mrs. van D. head for the divan, Peter for the attic, Father for his divan, Dussel too, and Anne does her homework” (Frank 125). In my opinion, I think this works rather well, because it is a nice break from the usual I in diary writing.

Totally irrelevant here, but I just want to add it anyways because I noticed this. Anne mentions at one in her diary entries that the Westertoren bells have stopped chiming. What I got from that fact was a form of real life symbolism of doom or even foreshadowing that something bad and sinister was to come. Later on, as I continued reading, I found out that the Germans had removed the bells entirely in order to melt it for use in the war effort. So possibly the bells could have stopped chiming because of that reason.