Anne also gives us a fairly detailed description of the washing and lavatory arrangements, which are far from ideal. Again, the stress in her relations with her family is not easy. Clearly, she feels a greater affinity with her father than with her mother, and it appears that there are various "scenes" and quarrels because of what her mother perceives as Anne's faults and failings. As always, Mr. Frank attempts to improve the situation and asks Anne to be more helpful in the house, but Anne stubbornly declines, preferring to concentrate her efforts on her schoolwork.
The war news filtering in from the outside is bad, and the little group in hiding hears that many of their Jewish friends have been taken away, crowded into cattle trucks and sent off to concentration camps, first in Holland, and then farther east, into Poland. Anne asks herself, "If it is as bad as this in Holland, whatever will it be like in the distant and barbarous regions they are sent to? We assume that most of them are murdered. The English radio speaks of their being gassed" (October 9, 1942).
An admirable attempt is made to celebrate the birthdays of the little group, and everyone tries to procure a little gift through the people in the office, who constitute their only link with the outside world. Generally, these gifts consist of items of food, but also they occasionally include such "luxuries" as flowers and books — things we take for granted, but which were precious for the little group in the "Secret Annexe."
Anne's relations with her family continue to fluctuate. On October 16, 1942, she writes, "Mummy, Margot, and I are as thick as thieves again. It's really much better," and then she describes how she and Margot squeezed together into bed, letting one another read parts of their diaries — and also, girl-like, discussing their "looks."
