AUGUST, 1944
Dearest Kitty,
"A bundle of contradictions" was the end of my previous letter and is the beginning of this one. Can you please tell me exactly what "a bundle of contradictions" is? What does "contradiction" mean? Like so many words, it can be interpreted in two ways: a contradiction imposed from without and one imposed from within. The former means not accepting other peoples opinions, always knowing best, having the last word; in short, all those unpleasant traits for which Im known. The latter, for which Im not known, is my own secret.
As Ive told you many times, Im split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my abthty to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-color joke. This side of me is usually lying in wait to ambush the other one, which is much purer, deeper and finer. No one knows Annes better side, and thats why most people cant stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that everyones had enough of me to last a month. Actually, Im what a romantic movie is to a profound thinker -- a mere diversion, a comic interlude, something that is soon forgotten: not bad, but not particularly good either. I hate haVing to tell you this, but why shouldnt I admit it when I know its true? My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You cant imagine how often Ive tried to p:ush away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne-to beat her down, hide her. But it doesnt work, and I know why.
Im afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. Im afraid theyll mock me, think Im ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. Im used to not being taken seriously, but only the "lighthearted" Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the "deeper" Anne is too weak. If I force the good Anne into the spotlight for even fifteen minutes, she shuts up like a clam the moment shes called upon to speak, and lets Anne number one do the talking. Before I realize it, shes disappeared.
So the nice Anne is never seen in company. Shes never made a single appearance, though she almost always takes the stage when Im alone. I know exactly how Id like to be, how I am . . . on the inside. But unfortunately Im only like that with myself.
And perhaps thats why-no, Im sure thats the reason why -- I think of myself as happy on the inside and other people think Im happy on the outside. Im guided by
the pure Anne within, but on the outside Im nothing but a frolicsome little goat tugging at its tether.
As Ive told you, what I say is not what I feel, which is why I have a reputation for being boy-crazy as well as a flirt, a smart aleck and a reader of romances. The happy-go-lucky Anne laughs, gives a flippant reply, shrugs her shoulders and pretends she doesnt give a darn. The quiet Anne reacts in just the opposite way. If Im being completely honest, Ill have to admit that it does matter to me, that Im trying very hard to change myself, but that I Im always up against a more powerful enemy.
A voice within me is sobbing, "You see, thats whats become of you. Youre surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people, who dislike you, and all because you dont listen to the ; advice of your own better half.”
Believe me, Id like ; to listen, but it doesnt work, because if Im quiet and serious, everyone thinks Im putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then Im not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be sick, stuff me with aspirins and sedatives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movements and berate me for being in a bad mood, until I just cant keep it up anymore, because jj when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside g out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what Id like to be and what I could be if . . . if only there were no other people in the world.
Yours, Anne
M. Frank
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ANNES DIARY ENDS HERE.
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AFTERWORD
On the morning of August 4, 1944, sometime between ten and ten-thirty, a car pulled up at 263 Prinsengracht. Several figures emerged: an SS sergeant, Karl Josef Silberbauer, in full uniform, and at least three Dutch members of the Security Police, armed but in civilian clothes. Someone must have tipped them off.
They arrested the eight people hiding in the Annex, as well as two of their helpers, Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman -- though not Miep Gies and Elisabeth (Bep)
Voskuijl-and took all the valuables and cash they could find in the Annex.
After the arrest, Kugler and Kleiman were taken to a prison in Amsterdam. On September 11, 1944, they were transferred, without benefit of a trial, to a camp in Amersfoort (Holland). Kleiman, because of his poor health, was released on September 18, 1944. He remained in Amsterdam until his death in 1959.
Kugler managed to escape his imprisonment on March 28, 1945, when he and his fellow prisoners were being sent to Germany as forced laborers. He immigrated to Canada in 1955 and died in Toronto in 1989.
Elisabeth (Bep) Voskuijl Wijk died in Amsterdam in 1983.
Miep Santrouschitz Gies is still living in Amsterdam; her husband Jan died in 1993.
Upon their arrest, the eight residents of the Annex were first brought to a prison in Amsterdam and then transferred to Westerbork, the transit camp for Jews in the north of Holland. They were deported on September 3, 1944, in the last transport to leave Westerbork, and arrived three days later in Auschwitz (Poland).
Hermann van Pels (van Daan) was, according to the testimony of Otto Frank, gassed to death in Auschwitz in October or November 1944, shortly before the gas chambers were dismantled.
Auguste van Pels (Petronella van Daan) was transported from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen, from there to Buchenwald, then to Theresienstadt on April 9, 1945, and apparently to another concentration camp after that. It is certain that she did not survive, though the date of her death is unknown.
Peter van Pels (van Daan) was forced to take part in the January 16, 1945 "death march" from Auschwitz to Mauthausen (Austria), where he died on May 5, 1945, three days before the camp was liberated.
Fritz Pfeffer (Albert Dussel) died on December 20, 1944, in the Neuengamme concentration camp, where he had been transferred from either Buchenwald or Sachsenhausen.
Edith Frank died in Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 6, 1945, from hunger and exhaustion.
Margot and Anne Frank were transported from Auschwitz at the end of October and
brought to Bergen Belsen, a concentration camp near Hannover (Germany). The typhus epidemic that broke out in the winter of 1944-1945, as a result of the horrendous hygenic conditions, killed thousands of prisoners, including Margot and, a few days later, Anne. She must have died in late February or early March. The bodies of both girls were probably dumped in Bergen-Belsens mass graves. The camp was liberated by British troops on April 12, 1945.
Otto Frank was the only one of the eight to survive the concentration camps. After Auschwitz was liberated by Russian troops, he was repatriated to Amsterdam by way of Odessa and Marseille. He arrived in Amsterdam on June 3, 1945, and stayed there until 1953, when he moved to Basel (Switzerland), where his sister and her family, and later his brother, lived. He married Elfriede Markovits Geiringer, originally from Vienna, who had survived Auschwitz and lost a husband and son in Mauthausen. Until his death on August 19, 1980, Otto Frank continued to live in Birsfelden, outside Basel, where he devoted himself to sharing the message of his daughters diary with people all over the world.