‘Diary’ Sheds New Light On Life Of Anne Frank

In 1947, a Dutch Jew named Otto Frank published the diary kept by his younger daughter, Anne, during two years of hiding from Nazis.

By then, he was the lone survivor of the Secret Annex, the Amsterdam hideaway where eight hunted Jews found sanctuary from early July 1942 to Aug. 4, 1944, when they were discovered.

For Otto Frank, publication was a father’s tribute to a lively, bright, often willful child. Ultimately, it became the most widely read work in Holocaust literature - a triumph of hope over horror, a record of daily life in confinement, a chronicle of a child’s maturation into a young adult.

But Otto Frank the father won out over Otto Frank the historian when it came to revealing certain secrets his daughter shared with “Kitty,” as she called the red-and-white checked volume she’d received for her 13th birthday, just before they were forced into hiding. So he edited out about 30 percent of the original document.

Now, on the 50th anniversary of her death, in a concentration camp, an unabridged edition of Anne Frank’s diary has been released by Doubleday, authorized by the Anne Frank Foundation. “Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition” ($25) contains a fresh translation and any entries or parts of entries previously cut.

Many of them deal with Anne’s negative feelings about her mother, speak unflatteringly of other annex dwellers, or explore her emerging sexuality - matters that Otto Frank apparently felt posterity could do without, given the mores of the times.

For instance, on April 18, 1944, Anne writes about a conversation with Peter van Pels, a boy several years her senior, also living in the Annex.

From the early version: “I explained everything about girls to him and didn’t hesitate to discuss the most intimate things. The evening ended by each giving the other a kiss, just about beside my mouth, it’s really a lovely feeling.”

From the new version: “I told him all about girls, without hesitating to discuss the most intimate matters. I found it rather amusing that he thought the opening in a woman’s body was simply left out of illustrations. He couldn’t imagine that it was actually located between a woman’s legs. The evening ended with a mutual kiss, near the mouth. It’s really a lovely feeling!”

At first, Anne wrote only for herself. But during a 1944 radio broadcast, she heard a member of the Dutch government in exile announce that after the war, he hoped to collect and publish eyewitness accounts of life during the Nazi occupation.

The diary was saved by Miep Gies, one of the family’s saviors, who’d found it in the annex after its inhabitants were arrested.