From the Diary of Anne Frank
Diaries, journals, logs and memoirs
Tell apart a diary, journal, log and memoir, and know Anne Frank's story.
Who was Anne Frank? A Jewish girl, born in Germany on 12 June 1929. Her family moved to Amsterdam when the Nazis came to power in Germany. When the Nazis took over the Netherlands too, the family went into hiding in July 1942, in secret rooms in her father Otto Frank's office building, with four friends.
What happened to them. After two years the group was betrayed and sent to concentration camps. Anne died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen in early 1945, days after her sister Margot. Only Otto survived. He found the diary had been saved and had it published. Written in Dutch, it became one of the most widely read books in the world.
Important: the part we read comes before the hiding. The diary was a gift for her thirteenth birthday. The entries in our book are from June 1942, a few weeks before the family hid. Anne is still at school, worrying about friends, her maths teacher and the promotion meeting. The war is not in this extract.
Four kinds of personal record.
- diary: daily thoughts and feelings ('Woke up late, got scolded by Mum!');
- journal: a full daily record of a journey or a period of time ('The ride to Ooty was uneventful…');
- log: timed events, often official ('10:30 a.m. Went to the Director's office');
- memoir: a person's account of their own life ('This is how Raj Kapoor found me…').
What makes Anne's diary different. She does not just list facts. She writes letters to an imaginary friend she calls 'Kitty'.
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