with all its contents was coming down on them. (Thank God there were no strangers in the house.) It gave Peter a moment’s fright. But he was soon roaring with laughter, especially when he saw me standing at the bottom of the stairs, like a little island in the middle of a sea of beans! I was entirely surrounded up to my ankles in beans. Quickly we started to pick them up.
But beans are so slippery and small that they seemed to roll into all the possible and impossible corners and holes. Now, every time anyone goes downstairs they bend down once or twice, in order to be able to present Mrs. van Daan with a handful of beans.
I’d almost forgotten to mention that Daddy is quite better again.
Yours, Anne
PS. The news has just come over the radio that Algiers has fallen.
Morocco, Casablanca, and Oran have been in British hands for several days. Now we’re waiting for Tunis.
Tuesday, 10 November, 1942
Dear Kitty, Great news! We want to take in an eighth person. Yes, really! We’ve always thought that there was quite enough room and food for one more.
We were only afraid of giving Kleiman and Kugler more trouble. But now that the appalling stories we hear about Jews are getting even worse, Daddy got hold of the two people who had to decide, and they thought it was an excellent plan. “It is just as dangerous for seven as for eight,” they said, and quite rightly. When this was settled, we ran through our circle of friends, trying to think of a single person who would fit in well with our family. It wasn’t difficult to hit on someone. After Daddy had refused all members of the van Daan family, we chose a dentist called Albert Dussel, whose wife
