Finishing The Diary of Anne Frank

At long last, I have finished Anne Frank's diary. It's been an incredibly time-consuming book--taking me between two and three minutes to read a single page. Unlike any books I've ever read, the ending didn't tie together loose ends and left many things in the air; this, of course, is because Anne didn't know it would be her last entry to "Kitty" either. Reading the Afterword after finishing Anne's diary was really powerful for me. Towards the end of her diary, D Day occurred, there was very evident progress being made in favor of the Allies, and Anne's spirits were very noticably lifting. However, when I read the Afterword I found out only one of the eight people living in the Annex survived the Holocaust... after spending over two years in hiding and being so, so close to the end of the war. For example, the eight people living in the Annex were on the last transport to leave Westerbork and arrive in Auschwitz. After reading her diary and becoming attached in one way or another to all these people, this was incredibly hard to read. In addition, Anne was growing so much as a person: she went from being a semi-superficial, talkative, and, in her opinion, spoiled girl to becoming an insightful, thoughtful person who strove to improve and become the best person she could be. It's heartbreaking to read about so much potential demolished because of someone's hatred.

Overall, I enjoyed this book--well diary; I got a lot of insight into the Holocaust that I never would have otherwise--I was able to see it from a primary source who wrote it while it was happening and who didn't write it solely for others to read. The downside to this was that it tended to be redundant at times and was an incredibly slow read. Nevertheless, I would recommend it to anyone who can work through the slower parts because it carries a message about the Holocaust everyone needs to hear about growing up and more thoroughly understanding the tragedies that occurred to a group of people during the Holocaust.