Researchers at the Anne Frank House were recently able to decipher two never before seen pages of Anne Frank’s diary. The pages had been covered up with brown paper and were previously unreadable, until now.
Anne Frank is the Jewish teenager whose diary about coming of age while hiding in a secret annex during World War II is one of the world’s most widely known books.
On Anne’s thirteenth birthday, she received a red and white checkered diary which she began writing in and took with her when her family went into hiding a few weeks later in 1942. Anne wrote in that red and white checkered diary until it was full and continued to write entries, short stories, and letters in other notebooks for the next two years. In March 1944, the family heard on a radio broadcast that the exiled Dutch government was planning to publish accounts of life during the German occupation. Anne decided to rewrite her diary so that it could be published as a book after the war. She declared the title would be Het Achterhuis (The Secret Annex) and she completed approximately 200 loose pages of her rewrite before the family was arrested in August 1944.
Anne died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945, when she was 15. Otto Frank, Anne’s father, was the only family member to survive the war. When he returned to the secret annex, he discovered Anne’s diary had been saved by Miep Gies, one of the helpers who aided the family in hiding. He had Anne’s diary published in 1947.
The two newly revealed pages are from Anne’s first diary, the red and white checkered one. All of Anne’s writings are kept in storage at the Anne Frank House for safekeeping and are examined once every 10 years. During a regular check on the diary’s condition in 2016, the Anne Frank House photographed the pages with a high-resolution camera and light shining on them. Researchers saw the underlying text was partially visible and, using photo-imaging software, they were able to decipher the text without touching any of the pages, which could have damaged them.
The new content that was discovered? A few crossed out phrases, four “dirty” jokes, and a summary about sex education and prostitution. The pages were dated September 28, 1942 when Anne was 13.
It’s not known why or when Anne covered up the pages. It’s possible she didn’t want her father or anyone else in the annex to read them. Anne frequently edited and re-wrote her diary entries while in hiding and it’s also possible she pasted over the pages while she was preparing her second diary for publication.
There are so many things about this story that I find fascinating. I was unaware that Anne’s diaries were kept in storage and only taken out once every 10 years. I wonder what the researchers are looking for when they photograph the pages and do their routine checks. I wonder what else Anne would have edited had she had more time and had the family not been arrested. I wonder what the final version of her diary would have said.
The new text is available on the Anne Frank House website, but currently only in Dutch due to copyright restrictions. You can learn more at the Anne Frank House website.
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