EN

Anne Frank rewrites her diary

Anne Frank planned to publish a book after the war about her time in the Secret Annex.

In response to Minister Bolkestein's appeal on 28 March 1944 on Radio Oranje to keep wartime diaries and letters, Anne Frank decided to rewrite her diary into a novel: "Imagine how interesting it would be if I published a novel of the Secret Annex, from the title alone people would think it was a detective novel." [1]

Anne rewrote and edited her diary on loose sheets of duplicator paper. On Saturday 20 May 1944, she wrote: "Dear Kitty, At last after much contemplation I have begun my 'the Secret Annex', in my head it is already as finished as it can be, but in reality it will be a lot slower, if it ever gets finished at all."[2] Anne's rewritten version, known as Version B, ends with the diary entry of 29 March 1944.

Repeatedly, Anne expressed in her diaries that she wanted to publish a novel and become a writer or journalist.[3]

Footnotes

  1. ^ Anne Frank, Diary Version A, 29 March 1944, in: The Collected Works, transl. from the Dutch by Susan Massotty, London [etc.]: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2019.
  2. ^ Anne Frank, Diary Version A, 20 May 1944, in: The Collected Works.
  3. ^ Anne Frank, Diary Version A, 11 May 1944, in: The Collected Works.