Saturday, 3 October, 1942
Dear Kitty, There was another bust-up yesterday. Mummy kicked up a frightful row and told Daddy just what she thought of me.
Then she had an awful fit of tears so, of course, off. I went too, and I’d got such an awful headache anyway. Finally I told Daddy that I’m much more fond of him than Mummy, to which he replied that I’d get over that.
But I don’t believe it. I have to simply force myself to stay calm with her.
Daddy wishes that I would sometimes volunteer to help Mummy, when she doesn’t feel well or has a headache, but I shan’t. I am working hard at my French and am now reading La Belle Nivemaise.
Yours, Anne
Friday, 9 October, 1942
Dear Kitty, I’ve only got dismal and depressing news for you today. Our many Jewish friends are being taken away by the dozen. These people are treated by the Gestapo without a shred of decency, being loaded into cattle trucks and sent to Westerbork, the big Jewish camp in Drente. Westerbork sounds terrible: only one washing cubicle for a hundred people and not nearly enough lavatories. There is no separate accommodation. Men, women and children all sleep together. One hears of frightful immorality because of this; and a lot of the women, and even girls, who stay there for any length of time are expecting babies.
It is impossible to escape, most of the people in the camp are branded as inmates by their shaven heads and many also by their Jewish appearance.
If it is as bad as this in Holland whatever will it be like in the distant and barbarous regions they are sent to? We assume that most of them are murdered. The English radio speaks of their being gassed.
Perhaps that is the quickest way to die. I feel terribly upset. I couldn’t tear myself away while Miep told these dreadful stories and she herself was equally wound up for that matter. Just recently for instance, a poor old crippled Jew was sitting on her doorstep; she had been told to wait there by the Gestapo, who had gone to fetch a car to take her away. The poor old thing was terrified by the guns that were shooting at English planes overhead, and by the glaring beams of the searchlights. But Miep did not dare take her in, no one would undergo such a risk. The Germans strike without the slightest mercy. Bep too is very quiet: her boy friend has got to go to Germany. She is afraid that the airmen who fly over our homes will drop their bombs, often weighing a million kilos, on Dirk’s head. Jokes such as ‘he’s not likely to fall on him’ and ‘it only takes one bomb’ are in rather bad taste. Dirk is certainly not the only one who has to go; trainloads of boys leave daily. If they stop at a small station en route, sometimes some of them manage to get out unnoticed and escape, perhaps a few manage it.
This, however, is not the end of my bad news. Have you ever heard of hostages? That’s the latest thing in penalties for sabotage. Can you imagine anything so dreadful? Prominent citizens—innocent people—are thrown into prison to await their fate. If the saboteur can’t be traced, the Gestapo simply put about five hostages against the wall. Announcements of their deaths appear in the papers frequently. These outrages are described as ‘fatal accidents.’ Nice people, the Germans! To think that I was once one of them too! No, Hitler took away our nationality long ago. In fact, Germans and Jews are the greatest enemies in the world.
Yours, Anne
