The Diary of a Young Girl
The note of fear was never far away from Anne. Anne writes on 29th October, 1943 that sometimes she could only escape the ‘terrible fear’ through sleep. A couple of weeks later she reports that a simple thing like the doorbell ringing made her stomach churn and her heart beat wildly in fear. She writes, “All the fear I have ever felt is looming before me in all its horror”. But she remains optimistic. She hopes for a better life and time.
This must have taken considerable courage on her part. After the breakin which Anne reports on 11th April, 1944, she tells Mrs. Van Daan, “We must behave like soldiers”. Anne used to long for the happy life outside the annexe but at the same time feared the treatment given to the Jews outside. Jews were sent to the concentration camps. All her friends were in a terrible condition, but it was a blessing for her to be hiding in the annexe. This gave her courage at times when she became frustrated with her life in hiding. She knows that leaving the attic will likely result in her death as would her discovery by other than the sympathetic people hiding the Jewish families in the attic. During an air raid in July of 1943, Anne felt frightened as her house shaked, but she knews she couldn’t leave her hiding place. She was trapped yet she was courageous enough to go on. While Anne endured these types of situations, her hope for the future never faded and her enduring spirit was the quintessence of courage.
