Anne Frank brings her diary when she goes into hiding

Anne Frank took her red-checked diary with her when she went into hiding. On the first page she wrote: "Oh, I'm so glad I brought you along".^[1] When she rewrote her diary on loose sheets (Diary B), she elaborated on this:

"Margot and I started packing our most important belongings into a schoolbag. The first thing I stuck in was this diary, and then curlers, handkerchiefs, schoolbooks, a comb and some old letters. Preoccupied by the thought of going into hiding, I stuck the craziest things in the bag, but I'm not sorry. Memories mean more to me than dresses."^[2]

By the end of October 1942, the red checked diary was almost full. She wrote: "I may perhaps ask Bep if she can go to Perrij to see if they sell diaries, otherwise I will soon have to get a notebook, because my diary is getting full, too bad!"^[3] The first diary ends with the note of 5 December 1942. Anne did add notes of later dates and (due to lack of space) pasted in pages.

Many of Anne's experiences and opinions from her time in hiding are recorded in her diary entries and some of her short stories.

Anne writes in her diary that she did not hear where they were going until the morning of 6 July 1942. Her parents informed her on the way about the hiding place in the Opekta building, and about the preparations that had been made.^[4]

During the period in the Secret Annex, Anne tried to keep up with her schoolwork. In the Secret Annex, she studied English, French, German, shorthand, geometry, algebra, history, geography, art history, mythology, biology, biblical history and Dutch literature.^[5]

When the period in hiding began, Anne was 13 years old. Her sexual development was also covered in her diary. She noted in October '42 that she expected to get her first period soon.^[6] In early '44, she wrote about it again, by which time it had "only happened three times".^[7]

With Peter, Anne talked about the time before going into hiding. A few weeks later, they talked about the early days in hiding, and how they couldn't stand each other then.^[8] In March '44, the romance with Peter played out, which faded again after about six weeks.^[9]

Anne had a good relationship with Bep Voskuijl. Bep was by far the youngest of the helpers, and two of her sisters were younger than Anne. Besides herself, Margot and Peter, Anne also counted Bep among the youth who were not well understood by the adults in the Secret Annex.^[10]

As time progressed, Anne's notes became more introspective. In early '44, she writes about her increased people skills, noting that after six months, she actually thought it was enough.^[11] On 7 March 1944, she looks back on her development of about two years. In 1942, she experienced a 'carefree school time', only to be overwhelmed by loneliness and enter into all kinds of conflicts after 6 July. In early '43, she lost herself in grief and loneliness, while in the second half of that year, she grew to become a teenage girl, became more concerned with philosophical questions and got to know God.^[12] Moreover, this is when, by her own admission, she started thinking and writing. Her Short Stories are dated from July '43 onwards, except for three. On 20 May 1944, Anne writes that she has finally started writing The Secret Annex, the rewriting of her earlier diary entries with a view to publication.^[13] This process was in itself the most extensive reflection on earlier notes and thoughts that appear in the manuscripts.

It goes without saying that Anne too must have found her forced stay in the Secret Annex difficult. About her experience of the time in hiding, her father writes more than 20 years later that she especially looked forward every day to someone bringing news from outside.^[14]