Theme - RR1

Yashan Lei 806 RR1

Over the summer, I have read "The Diary of Anne Frank" by Francis Goodrich and Albert Hackett. This book tells a story about a thirteen year old Jewish girl named Anne and her family in hiding in Amsterdam, Holland because the Nazis will take them to a concentration camp and treat them brutally or even kill them. This is set in 1942 and during this period, many Jewish were killed, some went into hiding or if they're lucky enough, they would escape this awful place. A theme in this book taught me to cherish life. Anne's family, their friend Pete's family, and another Jewish man stayed in a small, packed, secret attic with the help of Miep, who secretly brought food for them without anyone knowing. All these people stuffed in this tight attic and never had enough to eat still endured it for about two years, just to stay alive for a bit longer hoping they could live, made me think about how life is precious and that we should not give up our life even when it's difficult.

The war that was going on took Anne's childhood away. She learned what going into hiding means, it is when she couldn't play and have fun breathing the fresh air anymore. During the two years in the little attic with many people, her father taught her school materials. With all the fun taken away and a war to face, she always listen to her father and stood strong to wait for her normal life to be back. This showed how she doesn't take life for granted. Also, Pete's family was always starving that they would even heartlessly tried to steal a little more food at night even though it was not considerate and kind of them because not just them, everyone in the attic were also crazy with their hunger. They were sorry afterword but it's hard to blame them because hunger can drive a person crazy. However, they just did it to try to survive, to have another day of living. In addition, a Jewish man that was a friend of Miep was also staying with them. Because there were so many people staying in the attic, he couldn't have any time alone when he wanted to. He had to share a room when he hated it but for the sake of living, he accepted it. He bear it for the sake of staying alive. These actions illustrated that all these people would rather live and accepted the things that they love to do taken away because of a hateful war than being dead and sent to a prison camp.

All these people believed that not giving up of living is important even if it's painful to endure it. Anne chose to stay living when her fun childhood is taken away, Pete's family took some food because they couldn't stand their hunger anymore just to remain alive, and a Jewish man gave up having some space alone because he also preferred to stay in this tight area more than be outside getting dragged to a concentration camp and treated horribly by the Nazis. This beautiful story taught me to love my life and not hate it even when there's a difficult period that we have to go through.