Page 46 - English Expedition Class 6

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The Diary of a Young Girl

Anne Frank

Sometimes we feel isolated and lonely even when we are with our family and friends. In such times,
especially during adolescence, many people take to writing a diary in which they share their most
personal thoughts and feelings, thus making it their closest friend and confi dante. Have you ever
written a diary? Did it help you express yourself better? Share your thoughts with the class.

Anne Frank received a diary as a present for her thirteenth birthday on 12 June 1942, and decided to
start writing about her ordinary life in it. But the times she lived in were far from ordinary. Adolf Hitler
and his party, the Nazis, had been in power in Germany since 1933. Anne and her family, like millions
of other Europeans, were Jewish. In Nazi Germany, the Jews were seen as a problem for the state and a
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‘fi nal solution’ was sought for the ‘Jewish question’. Th is ‘solution’ included confi scating their property
and homes, resettling them elsewhere and eventually sending them to concentration camps to do
hard labour amidst terrible living conditions, where they eventually perished or were killed. As the

1 confi scating: offi cially taking control of someone’s property as a punishment
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