Anne on the book that Peter was not allowed to read
In the Secret Annex, there was often not much more to do than read. But not every book was deemed suitable.
Trilogie Helen Zenna Smith
Vervaardiger: Anne Frank Stichting Copyright: AFS rechthebbende
Jo Kleiman regularly brought books for the people in hiding. In the late summer of 1942, when the Secret Annex had only been inhabited for a few weeks, he brought a book that was to cause quite a stir. Although the book title was not mentioned, it concerned a trilogy by Australian-British writer Helen Zenna Smith,[1] a Dutch translation of Not so quiet: stepdaughters of war (1930), Women of the aftermath (1932) and Shadow women (1932), published in a single volume by de Arbeiderspers in 1938.[2] The first part is about a group of British young ladies, who drive ambulances behind the front lines in northern France during the First World War. Their dangerous work and contact with German prisoners of war lead to coarser manners and looser sexual morals.
Peter's parents did not want him to read the book, which Anne said was "very outspoken". His mother later relented somewhat, but his father stood his ground. Peter rebelled against his parents and indignantly holed himself up in the attic, threatening that he wouldn't study English either if he wasn't allowed to read the book. Incidentally, Edith Frank thought her daughter Margot was very sensible "in such matters", but even so, she was not allowed to read the trilogy either.[3]
Several passages that may have raised eyebrows at the time would not cause much of a stir in this day and age:
"How disgusting you all are!" says Etta Potato. "I'm sure the prisoners weren't thinking horrid things, Tosh. They've all got sisters of their own."
"I hope they don't look at them in the same way, then. Isn't Etta Potato sweet, girls? The one and only virgo intacta in the convoy.”
There is a yell of indignation. "Here, what about me?" "And me?" "And me?"
“Children,” says Tosh, “you may be virgo, but I'm blowed if you're intacta."[4]
Meanwhile, the question remains whether Peter managed to read the book in the end.
Footnotes
- ^ Pseudoniem van Evadne Price, waarschijnlijk geboren als Eva Grace Price, een Australisch-Britse schrijfster, actrice, astroloog en media-persoonlijkheid. Zie verder Wikipedia: Evadne Price.
- ^ Helen Zenna Smith, Gij vrouwen...., Vrouwen in nood en Vrouwenroeping, Amsterdam: Arbeiderspers, 1938. Quotation from the original: Not so quiet. Stepdaughters of war.
- ^ Anne Frank, Diary Version A, 21 September 1942, in: The Collected Works, transl. from the Dutch by Susan Massotty, London [etc.]: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2019. She returns to the topic in Diary Version B: 2 September 1942. The book could be identified through the information from both entries. Thanks to Fons Oltheten.
- ^ Smith, Gij vrouwen..., p. 108.