What impressed me about this book was how insightful and intelligent this 14-year-old girl was. Also how open she was about her sexuality. She readily admitted that she was horny and that she had sexual feelings for girls as well as boys. I have visited the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen where she and her sister were eventually sent, and where she died. It's a horrifying experience, all the more so because of how optimistic and upbeat she remained in her diary during her period of hiding before being found.
a few years back i read " survivors: true stories of children in the holocaust" by allan zullo and mara bovsen.it is the memories of nine people and how they survived those times as children.it's not a real big book maybe 150 pages.i've since passed it along but i read it in one sitting often through tears.i was touched also by theiir intelligence and bravery in situations noone should have to endure.
The first time I read The Diary of Anne Frank, I was in fourth grade and didn't really get a whole lot out of it. I knew she was in an attic and was in the Holocaust. But then I read it again last year and discovered it was one of the best books I've ever read. It also struck me on how well written it was by a fourteen year old.
Waukegan, I think you'd like Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, as well. Frankl was a survivor of Auschwitz, I believe (his wife was sent to Bergen-Belsen, where she was killed). Years ago, when I was just out of college, I had a landlady who was German. She wasn't Jewish, but her family were known political rabble-rousers, and the Nazis didn't like them. They found out shortly before the war ended that they had been put on the list to be sent to Dachau. That will get your attention. You must have been a very precocious little girl to have read this at that age
thanks for the suggestion.i took a little time this afternoon to read about frankl and his book is one i would like to read. in the meantime i have never read anne frank's diary.it's been one of those that for one reason or another i haven't gotten to.....i think it's a good thing to reread books at differant stages in life.as we gain experiences sometimes it gives us more insight into the words we read.
Good point. That's how I feel about Huckleberry Finn, which I wrote about in another thread in the "Books" section.
RE: WW2 and concentration camps I dont know how many people know this? but the actor that played the French POW in the tv series "hogan Heros" was sent to a conentration camp when he was a child. Man after living through something like that i would be damned if I would star in a public show that kinda delt with this horrible memory! just imo
