ANNE FRANK : AFTERTHOUGHT

Finally finished reading The Diary of a Young Girl : Anne Frank. This book was purchased while holidaying in Korea in June. Books and bookmarks are my nerdiest purchase throughout that holiday trip!

Reading the book is like going on a tumultuous roller coaster ride. 

I hate how jolly the beginning of the diary started off; but yet am magically enthralled by how it fluctuates like the U.S. stock market as Anne's moods swung up and down - typical of a young girl who was in the process of learning more about this world, herself, and people around her. And I hate, especially, how the last diary entry went. A young girl in the midst of discovering herself, but yet having to have her life cut off so tragically short.

At times, I secretly felt bad reading the book. Because it makes me like I'm breaching someone's privacy.

Her insecurities. Feeling that her father's love is something that has to be earned. Feeling inferior to her elder sister. Her agonies with her mother. The Pete whom she first loved before the war started. And the Peter who she later grew to fall in love with in the hideout during the war. Feeling sorry for - and worrying about - her fellow Jewish friends whom she's not able to help. Being miserable. Being angry at her father and writing a heated letter to the latter; ending up feeling sorry for being rude and insensitive to her father. Scarce food source. Eating strawberry and green peas for weeks on end. Her struggles with her self-esteem. Questioning whether the relationship with Peter is out of pure love, or did it stem from boredom within the confines. Questioning herself. The internal struggle with her different personalities which she never articulated out. Searching for her true identity. Self-discovery. Self-identification.

At times, all these made me feel bad. It feels like I'm threading on someone's VERY private thoughts. When she was talking gushing about her first kiss, I felt sorry for reading it. Immensely uncomfortable. I mean, hello??? This is something private! I will not want people to hear me gushing about such girly stuff!

Another reason why I felt bad while reading the book is : it makes me wonder about A LOT of things.

Would Anne have complained about eating strawberries for weeks on end; if only she knew that - in a couple of months' time - their hideout would be stomped by the Gestapo? 

During the terrible times of starvation in concentration camps, did Anne ever think about how nice it would be to be able to taste strawberries again?

Some eyewitnesses who were in the same concentration camp reported that both Anne, Margot (Anne's elder sister), and their mother were very close to each other. Mother and daughters were rarely apart; and the supposedly hostility between Anne and her mother did not seem to be observed. 

Had Anne survived the war, would she have gone back and revised what she wrote - and thought - of her mother?

Otto. Oh, Otto Frank. How did he - the only survivor of the Frank family, as well as the sole survivor from the Secret Annexe - feel; reading the handwritten diary of his youngest daughter after her death, baring all her innermost thoughts, intense emotions, and deepest pain? And prior to reading her diary, have never had even the slightest inkling of it all? Of how deep - and, at times, amazingly mature - his youngest daughter's thoughts actually were despite her tender age?

Anne. If she had known that everyone hiding in the Secret Annexe would fall into the hands of the Gestapo 3 days after her last entry, would she have felt differently? There she was, writing about her confusion, her search for self-identity. Struggling between her two different sides with different personalities. There she was, so innocent and pure as a child should be. And, sadly, oblivious to what's to come in 3 days time.

Anne. If only she had hung on. If only she did not contract Typhus. Is it a good thing - that she never got to know that only a mere 2 months after her death, the concentration camp in which she was imprisoned in was liberated by the British forces?

OH MY. I can't stop thinking and wondering about these senseless questions. They burn inside my brain like coals.

Sometimes, I think my imagination is killing me.