the house. If there are, then the whole family has to go at once. If they don’t find any, they go onto the next house. No one has a chance of evading them unless one goes into hiding. Often they go around with lists, and only ring when they know they can get a good haul. Sometimes they let them off for cash—so much per head. It seems like the slave hunts of olden times. But it’s certainly no joke, it’s much too tragic for that. In the evenings when it’s dark, I often see rows of good, innocent people accompanied by crying children, walking on and on, in charge of a couple of these chaps, bullied and knocked about until they almost drop. No one is spared—old people, babies, expectant mothers, the sick—each and all join in the march of death.
How fortunate we are here, so well cared for and undisturbed. We wouldn’t have to worry about all this misery were it not that we are so anxious about all those dear to us whom we can no longer help.
I feel wicked sleeping in a warm bed, while my dearest friends have been knocked down or have fallen into a gutter somewhere out in the cold night. I get frightened when I think of close friends who have now been delivered into the hands of the crudest brutes that walk the earth. And all because they are Jews!
Yours, Anne
Friday, 20 November, 1942
Dear Kitty, None of us really knows how to take it all. The news about the Jews had not really penetrated through to us until now, and we thought it best to remain as cheerful as possible. Every now and then, when Miep lets out something about what has happened to a friend. Mummy and Mrs. van Daan always begin to cry, so Miep thinks it better not to tell us any more.
But Mr. Dussel was immediately plied with questions from all sides, and
