Tuesday, 1 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 people’s opinions, always knowing best, having the last word; in short, all those unpleasant traits for which I’m known. The latter, for which I’m not known, is my own secret.
As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-colour 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 Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me….
(Anne Frank's final diary entry.)
9
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I will re-read her diary one of these days. I first read it in 1967, I was 13 years old. Throught my adolescence, I read it so many times, I memorized it. I often slept with the book under my pillow. I thought, if Anne Frank can keep her sense of humor and optimism hiding, maybe I can survive the awful times I am going through. Childhood was painful. Anne's diary helped me.
SKH78
Level 8
May 11, 2018
2
I wish she had known that.
I don't know how to respond to this outside of the fact that Anne Frank was a teenage girl living with her family in hiding in Amsterdam. Imagine the turmoil of the times and another family having to hide them as they did, and Anne reacting to all this as a young person would.
(1) Do we know much about the mental health of Anne Frank?
(2) Would the bizarre situation they lived under cause her to exaggerate or make things up?
(3) Would anything similar to this have even helped cause the discovery of the Frank family?
Most likely we will never know. Therefore her final diary entry remains a mystery.
DenoPenno
Level 9
May 11, 2018
3
An amazing tragic story. How could supposedly civilized people have murdered this young woman and the other millions....all for nothing.
nicknotes
Level 8
May 11, 2018
4
because civilization is a contradiction
Nazi Germany was a study in contradictions itself: they made an amazing number of scientific and technological innovations-- and they wasted enormous amounts of time and on anthropological expeditions around the world, trying to prove their master race theories.
They had no regard for human life, yet animals were protected by several laws with severe penalties.
Toward the end of the war, when resources were needed, they were still making huge budget films, such as Kolberg and Life Goes On. Life Goes on was still being filmed less than a month before the surrender.
When defeat was an absolute certainty, they formed the Volkssturm, a ragtag army of people not qualified to serve. They did this not to win, but because they felt that if they fought fiercely enough, one or more of the allies would just give up.
The nazi government consisted of long, dull dinner parties where Hitler would ramble on about any subject that came into his head. It was up to his aides to take Hitler's word salad and shape it into policy.
This was not a nation run by rational people.
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