The daily problems of obtaining and preparing food, getting along with the various members of the group, contacts with the outside world and news of the progress of the war still occupy Anne’s thoughts to a considerable extent. But some things have changed. Anne’s feelings about Peter, for example, cause her to be very reserved with her family, and she says, “. . . the brightest spot of all is that at least I can write down my thoughts and feelings, otherwise I would be absolutely stifled!” (March 16, 1944).
As we read, we realize that Anne continues to resent being cooped up with the other members of the group and that she still objects to being treated as a child, for she says, “Although I’m only fourteen, I know quite well what I want, I know who is right and who is wrong, I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child, I feel quite independent of anyone” (March 17, 1944).
More and more, Peter and Anne confide in one another, and Anne records their conversations in her diary. As they open their hearts to one another, talking about their initial impressions of one another when the group first went into hiding, they realize that they have even more in common than they had ever imagined. Anne, however, is sad at the thought that Margot is made wretched by Anne’s relationship with Peter, since Margot also likes him, but Margot assures Anne, in a letter, that it is not that she herself loves Peter, but, rather, that she regrets not having found anyone for herself yet. This sets off a touching exchange of letters between Margot and Anne, in which each one shows her concern for the other’s feelings. It was obviously easier for them both to set their emotions down on paper than to talk about them face-to-face.
Both Anne and Peter have to take a fair amount of teasing from the adults about the fact that Anne goes up to Peter’s room in the evenings, and Anne remarks that “we don’t take much notice of all this parental chatter, their remarks are so feeble. Have the two sets of parents forgotten their own youth? It seems like it, at least they seem to take us seriously, if we make a joke, and laugh at us when we are serious” (March 23, 1944). In this, she is probably speaking for a great many teenagers who have often felt misunderstood and mistreated by their parents.
Although Anne states quite clearly that politics do not interest her, she nevertheless describes the reactions of the various members of the group to the news which they hear over the radio or from their “protectors.” For example, she depicts one scene as they all sit around the radio, listening to a speech given by Winston Churchill; yet, following the speech, the heated arguments that ensue horrify and anger her (March 27, 1944).
Anne continues to be more preoccupied with Peter and with the growing closeness between them. She also continues to resent her mother’s interference, although she admires her father’s restraint at his daughter’s obvious interest in Peter.
One day, one of the BBC broadcasts contains a suggestion by one of the Dutch leaders in exile that after the war the diaries and letters of people who have been through the war should be published. This causes quite a stir among the members of the group in hiding, and Anne starts to entertain serious thoughts of publishing her diary at a later stage, remarking that “it would seem quite funny ten years after the war if we Jews were to tell how we lived and what we ate and talked about here” (March 29, 1944). This sentence is strangely prophetic, as Anne’s diary is, indeed, one of the most vivid documents—and perhaps the best-known-that has survived from that period, giving us a painfully honest, human “inside view” of what it was like to be Jewish and to be hiding in perpetual fear during the war years.
Time and time again, Anne wrestles with depression, struggling to hold back tears when she is with Peter, bravely endeavoring not to sob out loud when she is alone. She tries to reason with herself, and eventually she succeeds, writing, “It was over!” (April 4, 1944). On the same occasion, she gives us a far more hopeful and more positive account of what she wants her future to be, so that the gloomy entry which began “For a long time I haven’t had any idea of what I was working for any more; the end of the war is so terribly far away, so unreal, like a fairy tale” becomes more optimistic: “I must work, so as not to be a fool, to get on, to become a journalist, because that’s what I want! I know that I can write.”
This same entry reveals Anne becoming a more mature young woman, one who is able to appraise herself and her surroundings clearly and also critically. She knows that she is the best judge of her own work, and she also realizes that she wants more from life than being just a homemaker, as her mother is, and as the women of her class generally were. Here, too, Anne exhibits an awareness of the position of women, an attitude which is far ahead of her time and her immediate environment.
