Yours, Anne
Friday, 12 March, 1943
Dear Kitty, May I introduce someone to you: Mama Frank, champion of youth!
Extra butter for the young, the problems of modern youth! Mummy defends youth in everything and after a certain amount of squabbling, she always gets her way. A bottle of preserved sole has gone bad; gala dinner for Mouschi and Boche. You haven’t met Boche yet, although she was here before we went into hiding. She is the warehouse and office cat and keeps down the rats in the storerooms. Her odd political name requires an explanation. For some time the firm had two cats, one for the warehouse and one for the attic. Now it occasionally happened that the two cats met, and the result was always a terrific fight. The aggressor was always the warehouse cat, yet it was always the attic cat who managed to win—just like among nations. So the storehouse cat was named the German or ‘Boche’ and the attic cat the English or ‘Tommy.’ Tommy was got rid of later, we are all entertained by Boche when we go downstairs.
We have eaten so many kidney beans and haricot beans that I can’t bear the sight of them any more. The mere thought of them makes me feel quite sick. Bread is no longer served in the evenings now. Daddy has just said that he doesn’t feel in a good mood. His eyes look so sad again—poor soul!
I can’t drag myself away from a book called The Knock at the Door by Ina Boudier-Bakker. The story of the family is exceptionally well written.
Apart from that, it is about war, writers, the emancipation of women and quite honestly I’m not awfully interested. Horrible air raids on Germany.
Mr. van Daan is in a bad mood, the cause—cigarette shortage. Discussions over the question of whether we should, or should not, use our canned vegetables ended in our favour.
