War may seem distant, but when it strikes, it is often caught off guard, interrupting all familiar trajectories of life. This is the same as in the post-pandemic era, when the outbreak of the epidemic found that the natural daily life was so fragile. The small ruptures in daily life make us understand that the familiar days can never go back. The "extraordinary" after the war/epidemic became our daily routine.
The scorched earth of gunfire rumbled and steamed, and the wounded and bleeding bodies were everywhere, and if there was any hope, pinned on the hero who led the end of the war. These are the images we get in the historical record, the impression of war, which seems to be a little far away from this era of peace. However, the way to "experience war" is not only to join the military, people of different identities and ages live in their own ways, in their memories, a closer description of the war may be: starting from a small place, feeling the rift in life, the daily order seems to be no longer restored, and then realizing the earth-shaking destruction. The course of an individual's life is interrupted, ahead of the state and before the times.
The Diary of Anne Frank is one such book, written honestly, so cruelly. The girl Anne's description of her feelings of hiding during the war presents a different side that is not seen in the official narrative, which is particularly important at present. "The Diary of Anne Frank" takes a "personal" perspective and writes that ordinary people feel the real "destruction" of war. Written during World War II, The Diary of Anne Frank is said to be one of the "10 books that changed the world", allowing us to see how personal faces are so real to the times.
The existence of the "Chamber of Secrets"
The Diary of Anne Frank was not originally written for publication, but was written during the wartime Period when Dutch Jewish girls were hiding from the Nazis (1942-1944). To escape the fate of being drafted into a concentration camp, Anne hid with her family and other Jews in the underground chamber of her father's original work during the age of 13-15, writing this diary of "talking to herself."
On the day of the camp's conscription order, Anne and her family left their original home, leaving the cat behind, too late or allowed to say goodbye to the boy who was dating... After creating the illusion of escape and moving into the chamber of secrets, they have since lived underground, and the memory of walking freely on the street is far away from Anne's childhood, even when the window is opened to breathe, they must pay attention to time and avoid eyeliner, which is the new daily life:
I don't think this house will ever feel like home, and it's not that I hate it, living here is more like a vacation in some strange little inn, it's a little strange to think so, but the life of hiding is such a thing. The Chamber of Secrets is a great place to hide, and although it is damp and the floor is sloping, I am afraid that you will not find a more comfortable hiding place in all of Amsterdam, no, in all of Holland.
Whatever we do, we are afraid of being heard or seen by our neighbors. On the first day, we immediately started to sew curtains, in fact, which is called curtains, just rags, what shapes, fabrics and colors, my father and I were clumsy, sewing crookedly, and then nailed these works of art to the windows with pushpins, and waited until they were no longer hiding to remove them.
Cramped space, cramped vision, restrictive movement also shattered the imagination, And Anne's family relied on a few well-informed people in her father's company to secretly send supplies and trade food in the black market intermediary so that they could cook simply. Since the company is still functioning normally, workers come in and out every day, and they live a "no sound" life, and they are worried about the slightest wind and grass. Also "sharing" the chamber were the Van Dan family, Dr. Dousser, etc., and the 8 people worked hard to restore the order of life, arranging the scope of the space available, time and festival ceremonies.
However, life of suffering is not warm, Anne honestly records her voice in her diary, and several families who originally had a good impression of each other have been confined to a small space since they were confined, and the friction of life has made them impatient with each other. However, in wartime, there was no "self" right to express, they were forced to become a closely related community, with the war approaching, human selfishness was also forced out, such as the Fan Dan family always took the opportunity to occupy food resources, several families complained and quarreled, etc., but there was no way to retreat, they could not move, while complaining and relying on each other, contradictory day by day to live.
When will I be able to get out of the Chamber of Secrets? After leaving the Chamber of Secrets, how will the days go on? This is Anne, and the hidden one's extravagant self-question. The "Chamber of Secrets" is like a microcosm of the entire era, corresponding to the external pressure of monitoring, hunting, and bombing at any time, and it is not known when there is a possibility of liberation.
How war bombarded me
In the Chamber of Secrets, unable to see the outside world, for Anne, the war has been approaching in the slightest rupture of life, eventually bringing earth-shaking destruction.
The guilt of watching the suffering of others swept in, albeit with a little indifference. Under Nazi surveillance, it is not uncommon for people to be perpetrators or bystanders for self-preservation or profit, and this diary reveals a different picture - the victims are difficult to survive, even if they are not divided, and they are forced to be selfish, And Anne describes her reaction when she learns that others have been taken away:
Whatever I did, I couldn't help but think of those who were gone. When I realize I'm laughing, I think it's shameful to be so happy. But, should I cry all day? I can't do that. The depressed atmosphere will eventually pass.
Nothing has changed, and so have the things we think, like a carousel, from Jews to food, from food to politics. Speaking of Jews, by the way, when I peeked through the curtains yesterday, I saw two Jews and felt as if I were seeing one of the Seven Wonders of the World. A very strange feeling came to my mind, as if I had reported them to the authorities and was spying on their misfortune at the moment.
People are forced to form communities, glimpse the dark side of each other's private lives, but must be interdependent. And Anne has a sensitive mind, has a strong sense of the surrounding environment, coupled with the youngest, compared to others seem to be maladaptive, nervous, her youth rebellion and wartime "collective consciousness" is incompatible - this situation can not tolerate too many "personal" voices, the underground chamber is not the existence of light, so Anne's sensitive nature caused group anxiety, criticized everywhere, Mrs. Van Dan said that Anne's disobedience will "kill us all".
Conformity is the safest approach in war, personal faces are smoothed out, sacrifice is common, but Anne is a growing girl, her "socialization" has become difficult, no standards to follow, and growth can not be repeated, the price of this war for Anne, is to miss the opportunity to be understood, accompanied, and the rupture of the relationship with her mother is also. By the end of the war, devastated cities can be rebuilt, but missing parts of one's life history cannot be repeated.
Love and darkness
Under the darkness, Anne showed the bright side of life.
The diary honestly writes down many complaints and criticisms, out of her judgment of personnel, confidently expressing "how Anne sees the world" itself. In contrast to the Nazi raid, she wrote down the kind people who risked their lives to assist them, the warm faces; Anne scolded Mrs. Van Dan for being selfish and ridiculous, and looked at the matter in a different way; she complained about her parents' neglect of her, knowing that she would hurt her mother but was unwilling to lie and pretend to love her, and introspected herself when arguing with her father. This is a growing, unfinished person, she thought: those may be the fragile sides of human beings. Bombarded by war, Anne quietly felt that the city was still breathing, there were many fresh lives outside, and her own metamorphosised body.
Along with this period, Anne fell in love with Peter, the son of the Van Dan family. She wrote down the curiosity about the body, the fire of love, the explosion of trance, it was a kind of life enthusiastic release, at this time Anne's personal voice and face re-three-dimensional, the desire to control her body and love, let her re-see herself as a woman, relative to the conservatism of the adults around her, she boldly felt all this, realized that she and her lovers have the ability to understand each other, and be happy. This sensitive mind, freed from the voices of criticism, sees its own energy again: in an atmosphere where the collective consciousness is amplified, her incompatibility is only amplified. Anne had a clear mind, perhaps a kind and nervous personality, because the memory was painful, but she also felt happiness and hope more intensely than others.
Anne was looking forward to the future, and she could say exactly that as a teenager, she was less confident than adults—because adults had grown up, they had groped the world, but teenagers were not, especially in the midst of war, and they were less aware of their future than adults. However, after experiencing these darknesses, Anne still insisted on love, expressed faith and hope, and in the small space of the Chamber of Secrets, there was not only death, but also the joy of love and life, and finally she said her expectation of becoming a journalist and writer after the war, writing her personal face with words, and resisting the violence of the times.
epilogue
Eventually, the Chamber of Secrets was rounded up and the members were sent to concentration camps. Peace came a few years later, but Anne did not survive the war.
The Diary of Anne Frank was published after the war by her father (the only survivor of the Frankish family) to fulfill her daughter's last wishes, and the wounded father did not pursue who had betrayed them. The secret room was still preserved after the war, and when reading this diary, I felt the true emotions of this young girl, whether it was love or hate, so strong that it was very shocking for the reader to learn the end of Anne at the end of the book.
Sometimes, receiving information about the war is how many victims have appeared in the battles of a certain year and month, and such a line of numbers will be frightening, but it will not resonate too deeply. But a diary, an autobiography, or a report of many tiny figures can make us see a living face and traces of existence, so easily erased under war, with no less power than the death of tens of millions of people, and at that moment human beings suddenly realized that the weight of individual life is never just one in billions...
"Anne Frank's Diary" is not only a classic read by contemporary teenagers, but also an important document for scholars to study history, and its exposure of the evils of the Nazi Party and the description of the history of the Second World War period make it unique historical value!
(End)