I can assure you that when I went to bed at 9 o’clock I couldn’t hold my legs still. I woke up at the stroke of twelve: planes again. Mr. Dussel was undressing. I didn’t let that put me off, and at the first shot, I leaped out of bed, wide awake. Two hours with Daddy and still they kept coming. Then they ceased firing and I was able to go to bed. I fell asleep at half past two.
7 o’clock. I sat up in bed with a start. Mr. van Daan was with Daddy. ‘Burglars’, was my first thought. I heard Mr. van Daan say ‘everything.’ I thought that everything had been stolen. But no, this time it was wonderful news, such as we have not heard for months, perhaps in all the war years.
“Mussolini has resigned, the King of Italy has taken over the government.”
We jumped for joy. After the terrible day yesterday, at last something good again—and—hope. Hope for it to end, hope for peace.
Kugler called in and told us that the Fokker aircraft factory had been badly damaged. Meanwhile we had another air raid alarm with planes overhead and one more warning siren. I’m just about choked with alarms, very tired and don’t feel a bit like work. But now the suspense over Italy has awakened the hope that the war will soon end, perhaps even this year.
Yours, Anne
Thursday, 29 July, 1943
Dear Kitty, Mrs. van Daan, Mr. Dussel, and I were doing the dishes and I was extraordinarily quiet, which hardly ever happens, so they would have been sure to notice.
In order to avoid questions I quickly sought a fairly neutral topic, and thought that the book Henry from Across the street would meet the need.
But I had made a mistake. If Mrs. van Daan doesn’t pounce on me, then Mr.
Dussel does. This was what it came to—Mr. Dussel had specially
recommended us this book as being excellent. Margot and I thought it was anything but excellent. The boy’s character was certainly well drawn, but the rest—I had better gloss over that. I said something to that effect while we were washing the dishes, but that brought me a packet of trouble.
“How can you understand the psychology of a man! Of a child is not so difficult (!). You are much too young for a book like that; why, even a man of twenty would not be able to grasp it.” (Why did he so especially recommend this book to Margot and me?) Now Mr. Dussel and Mrs. van Daan continued together, “You know too much about things that are unsuitable for you, you’ve been brought up all wrong. Later on, when you are older, you won’t enjoy anything, then you’ll say, ‘I read that in books twenty years ago’. You had better make haste, if you want to get a husband or fall in love—or everything is sure to be a disappointment to you. You are already proficient in the theory, it’s only the practice that you still lack!”
I suppose it’s their idea of a good upbringing to always try to set me against my parents, because that is what they often do. And to tell a girl of my age nothing about “grownup” subjects is an equally fine method! I see the results of that kind of upbringing frequently and all too clearly.
I could have (slapped both their faces at that moment, as they stood there making a fool of me. I was beside myself with rage and I’m just counting the days until I’m rid of ‘these’ people.
Mrs. van Daan is really something! For all her talk, she certainly does set an example—a bad one. She is well known to be very pushing, selfish, cunning, calculating and is never content. I can also add vanity and coquetry to the list. There is no question about it, she is an unspeakably disagreeable person. I could write whole chapters about Madame, and who knows, perhaps I will someday. Anyone can put on a fine coat of varnish outside. Mrs. van Daan is friendly to strangers and especially men, so it is easy to make a mistake when you have only known her for a short time.
Mummy thinks she is too stupid to waste words over, Margot that she’s too unimportant, Pim that she’s too ugly (literally and figuratively), and I, after long observation—for I was never prejudiced from the start—have come to
