scribbles and improvements. If I’m ever in a really very wicked mood, I’ll tear the blasted thing to pieces!
Yours, Anne
Monday, 22 May, 1944
Dear Kitty, On May 20th Daddy lost five bottles of yoghurt on a bet with Mrs. van Daan. The invasion still hasn’t come yet, it’s no exaggeration to say that all Amsterdam, all Holland, yes, the whole west coast of Europe, right down to Spain, talks about the invasion day and night, debates about it, and makes bets on it and … hopes.
The suspense is rising to a climax. By no means have everyone we had regarded as ‘good’ Dutch stuck to their faith in the English; by no means does everyone thinks the English bluff a masterly piece of strategy; oh no, the people want to see deeds at last, great, heroic deeds. Nobody sees beyond his own nose, no one thinks that the English are fighting for their own land and their own people, everyone thinks that it’s their duty to save Holland, as quickly and as well as they can.
What obligations have the English towards us? How have the Dutch earned the generous help that they seem so explicitly to expect? Oh no, the Dutch, are quite mistaken, the English, in spite of all their bluff, are certainly no more to blame for the war than all the other countries, great and small, which are now under German occupation. The English really won’t offer us their apologies, for even if we do reproach them for being asleep during the years when Germany was rearming, we cannot deny that all - the other countries, especially those bordering Germany, were doing the same.
We shan’t get anywhere by following an ostrich policy. England and the
whole world have seen that only too well now, and that is why, one by one, England, no less than the rest, will have to make heavy sacrifices.
No country is going to sacrifice its men for nothing and certainly not in the interests of another. England is not going to do that either. The invasion, with liberation and freedom, will come sometime, but England will appoint the day, not all the occupied countries put together.
To our great horror and regret we hear that the attitude of a great many people towards us Jews has changed. We hear that there is anti-Semitism now in circles that never thought of it before. This news has affected us all very, very deeply. The cause of this hatred of the Jews is understandable, even human sometimes, but not good. The Christians blame the Jews for giving secrets away to the Germans, for betraying their helpers and for the fact that, through the Jews, a great many Christians have, like so many others already suffered terrible punishments and a dreadful fate.
This is all true, but one must always look at these things from both sides. Would Christians behave differently in our place? The Germans have a means of making people talk. Can a person, entirely at their mercy, whether Jew or Christian, always remain silent? Everyone knows that is practically impossible. Why, then, should people demand the impossible of the Jews?
It’s being murmured in underground circles that the German Jews who emigrated to Holland and who are now in Poland may not be allowed to return here; they once had the right of asylum in Holland, but when Hitler has gone they will have to go back to Germany again. When one hears this one naturally wonders why we are carrying on with this long and difficult war. We always hear that we’re all fighting together for freedom, truth, and right! Is discord going to show itself while we are still fighting, is the Jew once again worth less than another?
Oh, it is sad, very sad, that once more, for the umpteenth time, the old truth is confirmed: “What one Christian does is his own responsibility, what one Jew does is thrown back at all Jews.”
Quite honestly, I can’t understand that the Dutch, who are such a good, honest, upright people, should judge us like this, we, the most oppressed,
