Grace from a Secret Annex: The Diary of Anne Frank

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."

There is a certain part of me that is naturally drawn to the Nazi holocaust . The stories are often filled with so much horror, pain and insanity. I found in "The Diary of Anne Frank", a 13 year old who describes her life in hiding and her impressions of the events taking place in the outside world in a secret annex around Holland. There is much sincerity in her writings. Filled with truthful emotions of fear, joy and hope.

I can only imagine what it would be like to live within a confined area with 7 other people for 2 years... not knowing when the end will arrive. In tough circumstances, will I be as hopeful... as faithful? I wonder if I will write and draw.

The last entry to 'Kitty' (the diary) was on August 1, 1944. The annex was discovered.

Anne succumbed to the disease, typhus (which also claimed the life of her sister, Margot) at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945 a few weeks before the camp was liberated by the British. She was 15 years old ...

Her inner most thoughts scribbled 50 years ago, challenges us today. Her writings lives on not as an ode to the past - but as a beacon of hope to the future ...

"I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me. I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn." Tuesday, 4 April, 1944

"Still, what does that matter? I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart." Saturday, 20 June, 1942

Her fears...
"I feel wicked sleeping in a warm bed, while my dearest friends have been knocked down or have fallen into a gutter somewhere out in the cold night. I get frightened when I think of close friends who have now been delivered into the hands of the cruelest brutes that walk the earth. And all because they are Jews!" Thursday, 19 November, 1942

"I could go on for hours about all the suffering the war has brought, but then I would only make myself more dejected. There is nothing we can do but wait as calmly as we can till the misery comes to an end. Jews and Christians wait, the whole earth waits; and there are many who wait for death." Wednesday, 13 January, 1943

"If I just think of how we live here, I usually come to the conclusion that it is a paradise compared with how other Jews who are not in hiding must be living," Saturday, 1 May, 1943

Her frustrations...
"'Would anyone, either Jew or non-Jew, understand this about me, that I am simply a young girl badly in need of some rollicking fun?'" Friday, 24 December, 1943

"The war goes on just the same, whether or not we choose to quarrel, or long for freedom and fresh air, and so we should try to make the best of our stay here. Now I'm preaching, but I also believe that if I stay here for very long I shall grow into a dried-up old beanstalk. And I did so want to grow into a real young woman!" Saturday, 15 January, 1944

Her believes...
"Riches can all be lost, but that happiness in your own heart can only be veiled, and it will still bring you happiness again, as long as you live. As long as you can look fearlessly up into the heavens, as long as you know that you are pure within, and that you will still find happiness." Wednesday, 23 February, 1944

"It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again." Saturday, 15 July, 1944

"Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!"