Paulami's Musings | Life

I am Anne

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." - Anne Frank

FOREWORD

Yes, I am late and I am quite ashamed about it.

Every time I thought ‘this is the book I want to read’ something else took a priority and this one got pushed for later. This must have went on for years and finally in 2021 I held this book with pride.

One of the most heart breaking stories I have ever read, because it’s not a story, it’s real life and these were real people. The hopes and dreams were real. The resilience and will power to survive was real!

I had some preconceived notions about the story and I was proved wrong after completing it.

I thought Anne kept on writing even after she got caught.
I thought Anne could not make it but others did.

The book ends abruptly. And I am left speechless after reading the afterword. None of them could make it except her father. They were eight in hiding.

Anne wanted to be a writer. She hoped for freedom, she was waiting to go back to school. She was secretly praying for the Allied forces to win the war so that she could breathe freely again. I saw a little talkative restless girl transform into a thoughtful mature teenager in those two years. How much I wish they were never discovered! How I wish Anne’s dreams of going back to school was never shattered.

Mostly after sometime we want a book to reach its end so that we can pick up another one. But this time I wanted it to go on and on, I wanted to continue reading. I wanted to be her invisible confidante. I wanted to see her free one day, going to school, doing everything that she wanted to do and leading a happy life with Peter.

Instead, here is her soul looking at us and wondering, ‘I could have done this better’.

I AM ANNE !

Hey everyone, I am Anne. I don’t belong to your world and yet I am very much there. I was nobody, just an unknown teenager when I left my lovely home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. But death didn’t disappoint me at the end. My angels were so grieved with my anguish that they caressed me and said, “Anne, we couldn’t fulfil many of your dreams but we can fulfil at least one of them. You will be famous, everyone will know you.” They thought that would make me smile and accept my shapeless, formless self more positively. Did I have a choice, tell me?

And here I am, somebody at least. Most of you know me and some of you might have also befriended Kitty, my diary.

I see a lot of chaos again in your world. Reminds me of the good old days, well not as good as you may think. But it feels like a reflection of my world. There is an enemy, there are warriors, there is death, pain, restrains and similar problems. Some of you are stuck at home since a year like I was, some are fighting from front like our Allied forces and some started staying at home only recently, like the people in war torn cities, fearing their lives.

The British forces, I so much wanted them to win the war quickly so that I could go out and breathe freely. They were fighting very hard to free all the countries that were captured by the cruel Nazis. They knew neither day nor night, they just kept on moving and fighting, pushing the Germans back. They came via sea, many got killed, they were even airdropped in unknown enemy terrains; they were exhausted, wounded but they never accepted defeat. They moved on till they won the battle.

But there were sounds that scared me; the night raids, the fighter planes from both British and German sides flying over our heads, the constant gunshots and explosions. I would try to hide my face in my pillow, praying to spare me this time, every time. I see some sounds are bothering you too, the sound of ambulances. This sound has become too frequent these days, isn't it?

Can you see the metaphor here? Aren’t your frontline warriors fighting the same way as ours did?

I was a happy, bubbly teenager when I got to know that the basic freedom to live our lives our way existed no more because we were Jews. We couldn’t own cars, we couldn’t own businesses, we couldn’t go to theatres, we couldn’t sit in parks. Soon our homes also became an eyesore for the Nazis. My father had prepared well for this and when the moment came we just vanished from the glare of the Nazis.

But we lived in a self-made prison. The only good thing about this prison was that it gave us hope to survive the mayhem created by some fanatics. Life was tough; limited food, limited space, and limited happiness, but hope was unlimited.

Initially it was very hard to accept this change, a rainbow of emotions would overpower me but eventually I gave in. I felt lonely and ignored but later I realised each person was dealing with it in his or her own way. It was never about me but the situation.

There were windows in our secret home but we were forbidden from peeping through it. We would open it sometimes though but later we had to get more cautious about it. I craved for fresh air, sometimes when it rained I would run to the attic to feel the droplets and smell rain.

But here I see you are unhappy for not being able to step out of your homes. You can still look out of your windows or stand in the balcony and I so very envy you for this; you have the freedom to breathe fresh air and yet there isn’t enough oxygen I got to know! I was surprised, you can breathe freely yet there is scarcity of oxygen!

You can live freely without any fear of being taken captive, gassed or killed by the fanatic Gestapo. But then your enemy is not less dangerous, you can’t even see it! That itself scares me. At least Hitler and his SS were pretty much visible, we would know when our life was going to get in danger.

But many of you have free flow of food, there are no restrictions. We had to bank upon the limited food coupons, which were somehow managed for us by our friends. Sometimes all we could get were rotten potatoes, or we had to live on spinach for the whole week. That tough life was! And yet I agree, no amount of good food or comfortable shelter can prevent you from being vulnerable and protect you from this invisible enemy. I agree.

Many people were unhappy that Kitty went quiet suddenly. I never got a chance to look at Kitty you know. It was so sudden! I hid it, what if some SS discovered and destroyed it! i had thought I will come back and rescue it soon, I was sure the Allied forces would save us.

People were curious to know what happened to me and the other inmates after we got caught, how were our days and nights then. I can’t share those details, it’s too painful for me but I can tell you about those things that broke my heart. I could never go back to school, my dreams of a free life got shattered. My love story remained incomplete. I could never apologise to mother for being rude to her at times. I always thought she loved Margot more than me, but that’s not true, she loved me too but she was just tired.

I waited for the British army to win so eagerly, with so much hope, as if the rest of my life was their responsibility, but they were so late. We survived with whatever we had for two years, because we wanted to live. We didn’t want to die, I didn’t want to die, I had so many plans. No they didn’t gas me to death, I died of typhus. All of us perished for some or other reason; some dropped dead due to hunger and exhaustion, some were shot indiscriminately for no good reason, some couldn’t live through the death march, some were gassed to death and some unlucky like me died of the epidemic. We missed the opportunity, we couldn’t hang on for some more time, just a couple of months and we would have been free!

But that was not to happen, as my angel told me. Years later I was to become a renowned name along with Kitty. I had to pay the price for it.

I know your pain, although I initially thought that it’s nothing compared to the kind of life I had led during those two years but tell me, is ‘pain’ comparable? Your pain is no less significant than mine only because there's no Hitler now. I wish I could go back in time and change the events of 1944, we are never found and after a year the war ends, Hitler leaves our country and I am free again! How wonderful that would be! Do you also sometimes want to back in time to change the course of events? What if the virus didn’t infect the first person at all and absolutely died inside him!

I am Anne and I sign off with a glimmer of hope. Life is cruel yet when you look around you will see so much beauty in the small little things that you hardly got chance to notice. Stay positive for the sake of this beauty. This too shall pass!

AFTERWORD

Anne Frank’s story represents death of dreams. Many a dreams are being cut short again in this new world, be it the pandemic or the acts of ethnic cleansing happening in different parts of the world. History is always the greatest teacher but humans have not learnt enough from history. Life is cruel, yet it has to go on.

“Think of all the beauty left around you and be happy.” - Anne

Take a tour of the secret Annex, where Anne spent two years of her life.

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