Annelies полностью

At first Mummy tells her that it was Pim who has received the call-up notice, but her sister confesses the truth. An order from Die Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung, under the stamp of the mof security police, arrived in the morning post. A form letter from an SS-Hauptsturmführer, bearing the official rubber stamp, demanding that the Jewess Margot Betti Frank report for labor deployment inside the German Reich. By the time Pim comes home, he has already decided that they must move into their hiding place weeks earlier than planned. It’s hard to resist the urge to panic as the process accelerates into a fluster of preparation. Anne packs her curlers, her favorite books, her tortoiseshell comb, clean handkerchiefs, and a few crazy things, too. Old tickets from a skating party at the Apollohal in the Stadionweg, a painted dreidel her omi Alice had sent her for Hanukkah, her poetry album from school with all her friends’ handwritten poems, her film-star photos and collection of postcards, her set of table-tennis paddles. Memories are more important to her than dresses, she insists. Of course, she also carefully packs her diary. The tartan plaid album that, as she hoped, has indeed become her favorite and most intimate confidante, to which she has confessed all the turmoil of the last few days. The letter they leave on the dining-room table is for their upstairs tenant to find. It implies that they have fled Holland to join Pim’s family in Switzerland. By the next afternoon, the entire family has slipped off the map of Amsterdam and into the hiding place: the rear annex of Pim’s office building in the Prinsengracht. “Het Achterhuis” is what Anne will call it in her diary. The House Behind.

4 THE HOUSE BEHIND

The Annex is an ideal place to hide in. It may be damp and lopsided, but there’s probably not a more comfortable hiding place in all of Amsterdam. No, in all of Holland.

 . . . Up to now our bedroom, with its blank walls, was very bare. Thanks to Father—who brought my entire postcard and movie-star collection here beforehand—and to a brush and a pot of glue, I was able to plaster the walls with pictures. It looks much more cheerful.

—Anne Frank, from her diary, 11 July 1942

1944

The Achterhuis

Prinsengracht 263

Rear Annex

OCCUPIED NETHERLANDS

No one would ever suspect there were so many rooms behind that plain gray door. There’s just one small step in front of the door, and then you’re inside. Straight ahead of you is a steep flight of stairs. To the left is a narrow hallway opening onto a room that serves as the Frank family’s living room and bedroom.

She is sitting on the steps, alone. Thankful to be alone to write. Knees together with her diary on her lap. Her eyes lift from the page in thought. She gazes at the door that separates her from the remainder of the world.

If you go up the stairs and open the door at the top, you’re surprised to see such a large, light and spacious room in an old canalside house like this. It contains a stove (thanks to the fact that it used to be Mr. Kugler’s laboratory) and a sink. This will be the kitchen and bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. van Pels, as well as the general living room, dining room and study for us all. A tiny side room is to be Peter van Pels’s bedroom. Then, just as in the front part of the building, there’s an attic and a loft. So there you are. Now I’ve introduced you to the whole of our lovely Annex!

Yours, Anne

There are eight of them in hiding now, fifteen months after the Frank family slipped off the map. Anne and her family have been joined by the spice expert Hermann van Pels, also known as Putti; his wife, Kerli; and their son, Peter; plus Miep’s dentist, the lofty Mr. Pfeffer, who makes it a crowd in more ways than one. In Anne’s opinion. In fact, most everybody is driving her crazy in one manner or another. She scribbles in her diary when she manages a few moments to herself.