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The Diary of Anne Frank 30975 Views
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Description:
She was just a girl who found herself in some unimaginably awful circumstances. If you feel like gaining some valuable perspective on the drama in your life, cozy up with this little book.
Transcript
- 00:04
Diary of Anne Frank, a la Shmoop. The Diary of Anne Frank, or as it was originally
- 00:11
published, Diary of a Young Girl...
- 00:13
...is, in some ways, much like any young girl's diary.
- 00:17
In it, she vents about her mother.
- 00:19
She talks about boys.
Full Transcript
- 00:20
She talks about boy trouble.
- 00:23
She expresses a slew of joys, fears, insecurities and doubts.
- 00:30
The only difference is the setting.
- 00:33
One of the reasons that Anne's diary affects us so profoundly is that it is nothing like
- 00:40
any other books about the Holocaust.
- 00:43
It doesn't put the reader inside the concentration camps...
- 00:45
...exposing them to the abject horror of the prisoners' circumstances.
- 00:50
It doesn't focus on the Nazis, asking the reader to examine the soldiers' psyches in
- 00:54
an attempt to understand what could cause them to perform such inhumane acts of brutality.
- 01:00
Nope. Instead... it's a coming-of-age story.
- 01:05
Anne lives with her parents, she has friends and crushes... and a cat.
- 01:10
We can see her grow up as we read... from an innocent child, curious about the world
- 01:15
and filled with angst...
- 01:16
...to a young adult. More confident, more secure... and with the newfound wisdom to be absolutely
- 01:29
terrified. We are naturally drawn to stories of children
- 01:39
anyway...
- 01:40
...and when one of them is placed in such a unique, chilling situation as Anne Frank...
- 01:46
...our attention is held raptly.
- 01:48
Her diary gives us insight into a point of view we just don't have much access to in
- 01:54
terms of World War II literature.
- 01:56
Not that of a grown man, who has lived a full life and has long been aware of the potential
- 02:02
cruelty of man...
- 02:05
...but of a young, blossoming girl, who felt as if she had her entire life in front of
- 02:12
her...
- 02:13
...and could not have known the extent of the evil that lives in some men's hearts.
- 02:19
What makes her emotional journey even sadder...
- 02:22
... is that we know there was an entire generation of young children with similar stories.
- 02:27
Anne's diary gave a voice to all those who died far too young.
- 02:32
We remind ourselves that, as tragic as this account is...
- 02:35
...it is only a mere sampling of the agony and despair that was suffered by Jewish youth
- 02:41
in 1940's Nazi Germany. And, while many young girls write about...
- 02:46
...gossip, secret crushes, and sibling rivalries...
- 02:48
...Anne was a young girl just like them...
- 02:52
...who had far more terrible things from which to hide.
- 02:58
Can you imagine being in Anne's situation... trying to grow up normally... at the same
- 03:05
time that you are surrounded by an unspeakable evil?
- 03:08
How would you have handled it? Shmoop amongst yourselves.
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