able to declare, and prove, exactly how you got it. They may still be used to pay taxes, but only until next week. Mr. Dussel has received an old- fashioned foot-operated dentist’s drill, I expect he’ll soon give me a thorough check-over. The “Führer aller Germanen” has been talking to wounded soldiers. Listening in to it was pitiful. Question and answer went
something like this:
“My name is Heinrich Scheppel.”
“Wounded where?”
“Near Stalingrad.”
“What kind of wound?”
“Two feet frozen off and a broken joint in the left arm.” This is exactly what the frightful puppet show on the radio was like. The wounded seemed to be proud of their wounds—the more the better. One of them felt so moved at being able to shake hands with the Führer (that is, if he still had a hand!) that he could hardly get the words out of his mouth.
Yours, Anne
Thursday, 25 March, 1943
Dear Kitty, Yesterday, Mummy, Daddy, Margot, and I were sitting pleasantly together when suddenly Peter came in and whispered something in Daddy’s ear. I heard something about a ‘barrel fallen over in the warehouse’ and ‘someone fumbling about at the door.’ Margot had heard it too, but when Daddy and Peter went off immediately, she tried to calm me down a bit, because I was naturally as white as a sheet and very jittery.
The three of us waited in suspense. A minute or two later Mrs. van Daan came upstairs; she’d been listening to the wireless in the private office. She told us that Pim had asked her to turn off the wireless and go softly upstairs.
But you know what that’s like, if you want to be extra quiet, then each step of the old stairs creaks twice as loudly. Five minutes later Pim and Peter appeared again, white to the roots of their hair, and told us their experience.
They had hidden themselves under the stairs and waited, with no result at first. But suddenly, yes, I must tell you, they heard two loud bumps, just as if two doors were banged here in the house. Pim was upstairs in one leap, Peter warned Mr. Dussel first, who finally landed upstairs with lot of fuss and noise. Then we all went up in stockinged feet to the van Daans on the next floor. Mr. van Daan had a bad cold and had already gone to bed, so we all drew up closely around his bed and whispered our suspicions to him.
Each time Mr. van Daan coughed loudly, Mrs. van Daan and I were so scared that we thought we were going to have a fit. That went on until one of us got the bright idea of giving him some codeine, which soothed the cough at once. Again we waited and waited, but we heard no more and finally we all came to the conclusion that the thieves had taken to their heels when they heard footsteps in the house, which was otherwise so silent.
Now it was unfortunate that the wireless downstairs was still turned to England, and that the chairs were neatly arranged round it. If the door had been forced, and the air-raid wardens had noticed and warned the police, then the result might have been very unpleasant. So Mr. van Daan got up and put on his coat and hat and followed Daddy cautiously downstairs, Peter took up the rear, armed with a large hammer in case of emergencies.
The ladies upstairs (including Margot and me) waited in suspense, until the gentlemen reappeared five minutes later and told us that all was quiet in the house.
We arranged that we would not draw any water or pull the plug in the lavatory. But as the excitement had affected most of our tummies, you can imagine what the atmosphere was like when we had each paid a visit in succession.
When something like that happens, heaps of other things seem to come at the same time, as now. Number one was that the clock at the Westertoren, which I always find so reassuring, did not strike! Number two was that, Mr.
