De vele levens van Anne Frank

by Ruth Franklin, Mario Molegraaf (Translator)

Door haar dagboek – het meest gelezen boek over de Tweede Wereldoorlog – werd Anne Frank (1929-1945) een begrip. Deze nieuwe biografie werpt een nieuw licht op haar leven én haar naleven. Ruth Franklin schetst een volledig beeld, vanaf Annes familiegeschiedenis tot wat na haar dood in Bergen-Belsen gebeurde. Vluchteling, onderduiker, tiener en schrijver die postuum de wereld veroverde: alle gedaantes van Anne worden in dit boek besproken. Ruth Franklin schrijft naast haar in plaats van over haar, en weet zo de Holocaust in Nederland en het ultieme lot van Anne nog scherper te schetsen. Ze laat zien hoe Annes imago door de jaren heen is belaagd, via politieke manipulaties en controversiële bewerkingen. Maar het wordt duidelijk dat Anne Franks verhaal, met de onderdrukking, de onmenselijkheid en toch de hoop, in de wereld van nu nog altijd van het grootste belang is.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Holocaust, Audiobook, Jewish, Biography Memoir

400 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2025

Reviews

[Michelle Korting · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve studied much of WWII, the Holocaust and The Frank family. I was pleasantly surprised to learn a few things about Anne Frank that I had never heard or read before.
This book was well written and honored the life of Anne Frank and the legacy she left behind.

A must read. We learn from history and pray that we don’t repeat the same mistakes that transpired before.

[Erika Dreifus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even if you think you "know" Anne's story already, you should read this beautifully written, meticulously researched book.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

My appreciation and understanding of Anne Frank's life and work have grown in leaps and bounds after reading The Many Lives of Anne Frank by Ruth Franklin. It is part biography, part history, and highly relevant to today’s political climate.

I wrote about the book on my blog -- https://chriswolak.com/2025/04/01/six...

The Book Cougars were honored to talk with Ruth Franklin about this work and her previous biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (Episode 231 https://www.bookcougars.com/blog-1/20...).

[Chris Bartholet · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this book was insightful and thoughtful, I thought the section on Gaza was insensitive and not well thought out. The author continually has a problem with people using the word genocide to describe suffering, but she seems to not know the definition of genocide because what happened in South Africa and what is currently happening in Gaza is by definition a genocide.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars - The first part of this book, the biography, was quite interesting, but Part 2 went off on a lot of tangents that detracted from the book. I was hoping to get more of Otto, her father, in this section but alas. Feels like the author lost steam by the end

[Robbie See · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Franklin’s biography, The Many Lives of Anne Frank, explores questions that arose for me during the years that I used the play and the diary in my 8th grade classroom. Early on, I noticed discrepancies between the stage adaptation and the diary. These opened a window into the needs of playwrights for plot development and the desire of Anne’s father to educate an American audience about the Jewish experience during the war. But, while teaching online during Covid, I discovered something else: the online text and the text in the physical book were not the same. How did multiple versions of the diary come to exist? After giving readers a thoroughly researched and painfully detailed biography of Anne’s short life, Ruth Franklin delves into the process of shaping the text.

From the start, Ruth Franklin is determined to depict Anne as a real human being, not merely a symbol, and she succeeds. She quotes letters between Anne and some of her friends that were saved by families. She cites interviews with a sweetheart and other friends who survived. She evokes heartbreak with the story of school penpals in England who lost touch with Anne’s class during the war and later learned that nearly all of their correspondents died in the camps. Franklin faces head-on the horror of Anne’s death: Indeed, one chapter is titled “Corpse.”

Shaping and changing the diary occurred in several phases, to suit the purposes of different people. The first editor to change the diary was Anne herself: She rewrote much of the diary in response to a call by the Dutch government for citizens to keep records. After the war, Otto Frank, Anne’s father, felt compelled to publish the diary, and he made changes based on his priorities and market demands, pulling material from the first version or the second version, or cutting passages that he felt might harm someone still alive. While Anne wanted future generations to know how her family lived, Otto and others had new purposes: to give meaning to those who had died, and to warn the world about the holocaust. Readers like me encounter different texts because some publishers use Anne’s original text or her revised text while some use Otto’s final draft, and still others use a combination of all three.

Wishing to reach the widest possible audience, after publishing the diary internationally, Otto finally collaborated with Hollywood writers Goodrich and Hackett, the same couple who wrote Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life.” I was surprised to learn that many today consider the play a failure. It was certainly a blockbuster success at the time and achieved Otto’s goal of disseminating the story beyond a narrow Jewish audience. A movie soon followed, starring as Peter the actor who later dazzled audiences in West Side Story.

Yet many – then and now – considered the play “not Jewish enough.” I found this judgment surprising. It is true that one character who prays regularly in the diary is depicted as ignorant of his faith. However, I assumed that the playwrights made this change so that the characters could explain Jewish traditions on stage. It seemed more significant to me that, in the diary, Anne makes St. Nikolas gifts for everyone, but in the play, they are transformed to Hanukkah gifts. The play also includes Jewish prayers that are not in the diary. I concluded that Otto Frank and the playwrights had understandably chosen to educate the audience about the Jewish faith as part of the play. To me, this seemed to make the story more Jewish, not less. Plainly, the question of whether the stage version was emphasizing or de-emphasizing the family’s Jewish identity depends heavily on one’s perspective.

Ruth Franklin wisely describes the tension between making Anne’s story heavily Jewish or not as a tension between the universal and the particular. Otto Frank wanted Anne’s story to be both: Anne’s capacity to find meaning even in the presence of meaningless atrocity is a universal trait, and yet she suffered as a specific person, a Jewish girl. Anne’s legacy continues to grow in this tension, as her story enchants readers who recognize eternal truths through her brief experience

[Zoe Zeid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would round up to 4.5 stars. I really enjoyed this biography of Anne Frank! Anne's life was told in a nice, succinct manner and even though Anne did not live very long, so there is not that much to know, I learned a lot about her life and her friends from before and during the war. I also learned about how much Anne wanted to publish the diary, creating multiple versions throughout her time in hiding. After visiting the Anne Frank annex last year, it was easy to visualize as the author talked about their time in the annex (which was actually bigger than I expected). I learned a lot about Otto's creation of the published diary and the process of creating the play and movie after the diary was published. I liked the section at the end about how Anne has been used as a political figure, such as in Israel's war against Hamas. If you haven't read many biographies on Anne's life, I would highly recommend this one.

[Emily McKee]

I was interested in this after seeing reviews in both the New York Times and WSJ—especially having read The Betrayal of Anne Frank and its criticism.

This is both a biography and analysis of the edits made to the diary, as well as references to Anne in popular culture. It looks into portrayals of Anne and their accuracy. Learning about the diary edits and liberties taken in the play was very interesting, but the other pop culture analysis was more than I needed (thankfully it was fairly brief). Worth reading if this is a topic you are very interested in, but probably not the place to start if you don’t know much background.

[Barbara Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

I m well read on Frank, but learned a great deal from this book. Excellently organized and very thought-provoking in regards to Frank's legacy for our world today.

[Tammy Tosti · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I had to write a report on Anne Frank, I would read The Diary of Anne Frank and this book and be more than well prepared to deliver a comprehensive overview of her life, death and legacy. This book touches on Anne’s short life and how her story has been interpreted in written and theatrical form in the years since she died.

While it held my attention for the first half, the second half was a bit of a struggle for me to finish. It was certainly interesting to see how much her book has impacted our world, but I didn’t need to know about every book, movie and theatrical performance that has come about as a result.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was like a PHD thesis on Anne Frank. It was good and well written but, like, way deeper than I ever thought I’d go into Anne Frank and her life and influence. About halfway through this got very interesting, though, talking about the decisions that were made in the editing process and how different people perceived the book and how it informed so many views on the holocaust, then took on a role for other oppressed groups. So it was interesting. The deepest deep dive that I just never expected to dive deep for. But I definitely learned something and it was very good.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book goes in depth into the life, hiding, and imprisonment of Anne Frank, as well as those who shared the secret annex. Where it becomes exceptional is exploring how her diary and image has and have been used for political, social, and artistic movements. Very well researched and quite accessible. Perfect for anyone who wants a deeper dive into her life and international influence.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always happy to learn just a little more about Anne.

[Kavanaugh Kohls · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent overview of Anne Frank as both an individual and a historical character. While the author gets lost on the occasional tangent, she presents a compelling case for a multifaceted understanding of Anne.

[Oolookitty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written and thought-provoking. I thought I already knew a lot about Anne Frank, but this book gave me so many new insights, and new information, about her life before and after her experiences in hiding — especially about her skill as a writer and how seriously she took editing her diary for possible publication after the war.

The history of the battle to be “the right person” to tell her story (via the stage play) after the war is also disturbing and compelling.

The book is also excellent at addressing how people have seized, or attempted to seize, control of Anne’s image for their own political agendas, and the dangers that poses of diminishing Anne’s own actual identity, and the meaning of her life and death.

[Desiree 🧚‍♀️ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5*
Audiobook
I have read probably every single book about Anne Frank, and this one really doesn’t add much new information. I also found the last half to be somewhat random, and it was off putting when the author said it is “incendiary” to call the genocide in Palestine a genocide. I also don’t get the point in speculating what Anne’s political positions would be in the modern day. The whole point is that she is a victim of genocide, so we will never know

[Léonie Galaxie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Many Lives of Anne Frank by Ruth Franklin stands as a remarkable achievement in biographical scholarship, offering readers both a vivid portrait of Frank's actual life and a penetrating analysis of how her legacy has been shaped, reshaped, and sometimes distorted in the decades since her death. This award-winning biographer has produced a work that is both deeply researched cultural history and passionate advocacy for seeing Anne Frank as she truly was: a complex human being and gifted literary artist rather than a simplified symbol.

Franklin's greatest accomplishment lies in her ability to restore the "rich texture" of Frank's life while simultaneously examining the "complicated genesis" of her published diary. Too often, Frank has been reduced to a one-dimensional figure of innocence and hope, but Franklin reveals a far more interesting reality. Her meticulous research uncovers the editorial decisions, family dynamics, and cultural forces that transformed a teenager's private writings into one of the world's most famous books.

The book's most compelling sections explore Otto Frank's role as the keeper of his daughter's memory—what Franklin astutely identifies as "perhaps the most confusing—and most contested—aspect of Anne's story." With remarkable sensitivity, Franklin navigates the difficult terrain of a grieving father's attempts to honor his daughter's memory while sometimes inadvertently diminishing her complexity. Otto's editorial choices, driven by both protective instincts and cultural pressures of the era, shaped how generations would understand his daughter's story.

Franklin writes with the authority of extensive archival research combined with the narrative skill that marks exceptional biography. Her exploration of how Frank's story has been "edited, censored, commodified, and appropriated" reads like a detective story, revealing how political agendas, commercial interests, and well-meaning but misguided efforts have obscured the real Anne Frank. The result is cultural history of the highest order.

What makes The Many Lives of Anne Frank particularly valuable is Franklin's insistence on Frank's identity as a literary artist. By examining the sophistication of Frank's writing, her evolving style, and her conscious artistic choices, Franklin makes a compelling case for recognizing the diary's literary merit beyond its historical significance. This perspective transforms our understanding of both the work and its creator.

The book succeeds admirably in its call for "reëvaluation" of Frank's legacy. Franklin demonstrates how the various mythologized versions of Anne Frank—the eternally optimistic child, the universal symbol of innocence, the convenient "figurehead against prejudice"—actually diminish her true achievement. By stripping away these accumulated layers of interpretation, Franklin reveals someone far more interesting: a young writer grappling with complex questions about identity, family, love, and survival.

Franklin's prose combines scholarly rigor with genuine emotional engagement. Her "sensitivity and assiduous research" never feel academic or distant but rather serve a deeply humane project of restoration and recognition. She writes with the passion of someone who believes that getting Frank's story right matters—not just for historical accuracy but for understanding how we create and distort cultural memory.

The Many Lives of Anne Frank is essential reading for anyone interested in Holocaust history, literary biography, or the ways cultural icons are created and sustained. Franklin has produced a masterwork that honors Anne Frank by seeing her clearly—as a brilliant young writer whose true legacy is far richer and more complex than any simplified symbol could ever capture.

[Susan Scribner · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first two-thirds of this book are a straightforward biography of Anne Frank's short life. I didn't realize that there were multiple versions of Anne's diary, and that the manuscript Otto Frank submitted to publishers was a combination of the original entries, a more polished version that Anne rewrote with a critical literary eye, and some key edits by Otto. Seeing the earliest version side by side with the one familiar to millions of readers renders Anne a fully dimensional, flawed human being instead of a saintly martyr.

Unfortunately, the winnowing away of Anne's humanity continues in the book's last section, as Franklin describes the journey of her diary entries to worldwide bestselling book, award-winning Broadway play, and well-received Hollywood movie. Choices made along the way were designed to make Anne's story relatable to a broad American audience. The sharper aspects of Anne's complex personality were smoothed over, and Germany's deadly antisemitism was de-emphasized in favor of more anodyne "prejudice is bad" rhetoric.

A recent discussion with friends about the sorry state of the world led to one of them wondering who will be "the next Anne Frank." The fact that we can even ask that question shows that a human being has become a symbol. Is that the immortality Anne wanted?


Related recommended reading: What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank and People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much of this book is great--the reading of the Diary that recovers it as art and history and gives us a full sense of Anne Frank as a human being and a developing artist consciously revising her own writings; the acute discussion and demonstration of just how we can see her doing this in each version; the smart historical exploration of what happened in the Netherlands and how other Dutch Jews managed to survive; the immensely painful story of how Otto Frank came back home alone and was handed the diary, which (I didn't know) was rescued from a publisher's slush pile; once more, the Meyer Levin saga, about which I read and reviewed the two books she most utilizes here, and which even so still astonishes with Levin's wild, uncontrolled egotism and messianic certainty that he, and only he, was the book's fit guardian. The readings of how major Jewish authors like Roth and Auslander imagined living Anne Frank are astute and very smart, as are Franklin's thoughts about this book as in many ways founding YA lit. (She notes the number of YA novels, for better and worse, that use either Anne or the house as a metaphorical touchstone.) And she's open to the fundamental debate over how to understand and situate the book, the battle between particular and general, which Otto Frank and Levin and the couple who wrote the play and movie and numerous other commentators, maybe most powerfully Cynthia Ozick, have wrestled with.

And then, ugh. I'm not hugely lefty on this question, but my god, the way she talks about Palestine and Palestinians here in the last few pages. Just, ugh. Lacks the empathy and the imagination and just general moral humanity of the previous 320 pages. Not enough to wreck the book by any means, but just, wow.

[Bonnie_Rae]

I was enjoying this book in the first half - going over Anne Frank's short life and her mindful editing of her diary (Version A versus Version B), but the second half dragged on and the last few pages left me soured on this book.

I believe Ruth Franklin did a tremendous amount of research for this book and by GOD were we going to see it all, but did we have to spend so much time re-litigating Otto Frank's decisions to publish his daughter's diary and the obsession of Meyer Levin to write the play he wanted to see on the stage?

Franklin's false equivalency of the active and ongoing genocide in Palestine (which has since ramped up enormously since the publication of this novel) with Jewish/pro-Zionist students in American universities was disgusting. She deliberately stepped around and outright ignored war crimes perpetuated on innocent victims (look up IDF soldiers stealing and wearing the clothing of the people, especially the women, they displaced if you can stomach it, or the repeated and verified accounts of IDF soldiers filming themselves assaulting (physically and sexually) and killing Palestinian people). Claiming "ostensible supporters of Palestinian rights often employ antisemitic tropes" (with really just one example, that of a gross Dutch rapper and troll) and repeated the IDF's baseless claims that up to one-third of all the Palestinian deaths as of summer 2024 were Hamas and wrote "Israel insists that its military does not target non-combatants and that Hamas, which embeds itself within communities and diverts aid intended from civilians, is responsible for the high death toll," which is a blatant and obvious lie.

[Christine Mathieu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Similarly convoluted and over-loaded like Joan Shenkar's Patricia Highsmith biography.
For the past 55+ years I've read every new book on Anne Frank, Otto Frank, the 8 people in hiding and their helpers (I've visited the Anne Frank House on Prinsengracht in Amsterdam 4 times between 1968 and 2019), but this was the one Anne Frank book that I found very disappointing and superfluous.

My tip: read instead the much less confusing and much more rewarding autobiographies by Miep Gies and Hannah Pick-Goslar and the non-fiction books by Carole Ann Lee, Melissa Mueller, Willy Lindwer and Rosemary Sullivan (about the Anne Frank Cold Case Investigation).

Ruth Franklin goes off-topic way too often and mentions political issues which happened after WW II and are not related to Anne Frank at all.

2 stars for the only interesting chapter called "Lovers" which deals with Anne Frank and Peter van Pels.

Ähnlich wie Joan Shenkar's vollkommen überladene Patricia Highsmith Biographie fand ich dieses weitere Buch zum Thema Anne Frank ausgesprochen überflüssig (lediglich das Kapitel "Lovers" über Anne und Peter van Pels' Beziehung war interessant).
Das wurde in der Vergangenheit bereits alles viel anschaulicher und weniger verworren in den Sachbüchern bzw Autobiographien von Miep Gies, Carol Ann Lee, Melissa Mueller, Willy Lindwer, Hannah Pick-Goslar und Rosemary Sullivan beschrieben.
Ruth Franklin weicht zu oft vom Thema ab, spricht über politische Ereignisse, die absolut nichts mit Anne Frank zu tun haben (siehe die 2 Stern Rezensionen auf Englisch in amazon.com).

[Anyu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the first half more focused and more interesting than the second one, but this was overall very edifying, especially the analysis of Anne as a writer, deliberately rewriting, excising and rearranging her diary which ultimately make it more of a memoir; as well as the history of the various edits made to the text after her death. I was shocked to learn that the first German translation after the war was edited / censored to protect the feelings of Germans from Anne Frank's occasional negative opinion of them...

There were also political problems with the translation. As Schütz later explained to Der Spiegel, “A book intended after all for sale in Germany . . . cannot abuse the Germans.” […] Quoting the guidelines for Annex life prepared before Pfeffer’s arrival, Anne had written that only civilized languages are permitted, therefore no German; this was changed to “all civilized languages may be spoken,” eliding the fact that the Annex residents took pains to speak to each other in Dutch rather than in German, even though the latter would have been much easier on the adults. Anne’s description of Westerbork was cut, as well as the line about the deportees being gassed. “Heroism in the war or against the Germans” was changed to “heroism in the war and in the struggle against oppression.”

The last part of the book with all the pop culture examples of adaptations / appropriations of Anne's story was more uneven, with some passages I found a bit pointless, though it gives a good overview of the ways her image has been politically exploited and smoothed out into a convenient symbol by various factions. On the whole, a really good, informative read.

[Desirae · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book focuses mostly on Anne Frank as a talented author, and how the publication of her Diary transformed her over time from a precocious German-Jewish adolescent who fell victim to the Holocaust into a universal icon for better and, arguably, for worse. This is not an autobiography of Anne herself, but rather a study on how she became an international icon.

Here are just some of the important aspects covered: 1) how Anne Frank revised her original passages of the Diary to read more like a memoir for possible publication after the war, 2) Otto Frank's own revisions prior to publication, 3) the reception of the Diary [positive and negative] by critics, various groups, and the reading public from its initial publication onward, 4) the co-opting of the Diary for various causes- political and otherwise- up to 2024. The book is not intended to be a standard biography of Ann Frank, bur rather to allow the reader to examine her life and afterlife through multiple perspectives. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about Ann Frank as an author, the evolution of the Diary from her earliest revisions through to the current Definitive Edition, and the multifaceted impact of the Diary worldwide.

[Adina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ruth Franklin’s moving biography does an excellent job of teasing out the tensions between the universal and the particular in Anne Frank’s transformation from an individual to an icon, following the motivations and actions of the many people involved along the way from Miep Gies to Otto Frank, Meyer Levin to Barbara Zimmerman, Philip Roth to Chen Drachman, Nelson Mandela to Fumiko Ishioda. Anne, herself, is given consideration as a chronicler, author, and editor, as well as a girl seen through the eyes of the remarkable number of people who remembered encountering her during her short life. Anne Frank’s legacy is mutable and evolving as all legacies are, but Ruth Franklin points out some lodestars that ought to guide its evolution, pulled directly from Anne’s writings and from her father’s motivations for sharing her words with the world. Anne’s story ought to inspire the pursuit of tolerance and peace, it must be more than a “Jewish story” but it must also be a “Jewish story” so that it works against antisemitism. The challenge of sustaining such a balance between the universal and the particular is what contributes to Anne’s enduring power to inspire people all over the world.

[Sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’ve ever wanted to understand Anne Frank beyond her diary, this is the book for you. As someone who’s read her diary multiple times and deeply admires it, I found this book incredibly informative—it explores Anne’s life, her family’s history, and even her evolving legacy in today’s world. I was genuinely surprised by how much depth Ruth Franklin brought to Anne’s story, especially in showing how Anne was not just a symbol, but a serious writer with artistic intent.

I especially enjoyed Part 1, which focused on Anne’s personal journey and development. Toward the end, the book dives into heavier cultural and political topics that, while meaningful, felt a bit outside the scope of what I was looking for. They added context, but my main interest was Anne herself.

What stood out most to me was how Franklin never tried to speak over Anne’s voice. Instead, she honored it—letting Anne remain at the center of her own story. That choice was powerful, and it made the book feel like a true tribute rather than a reinterpretation.

[Mme Forte · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read many books about Anne Frank; this will stand as one of my favorites.

It is a biography of the young writer in the sense that it moves chronologically through her life, death, and what came after. Each stage of Anne's life is designated as a role she played in the world, beginning with Child, continuing with Refugee, Target, and so on. After her death (also a stage/role), there are Author, Celebrity, Icon, and Pawn.

The whole work is very well researched, detailed, and full of information that fills in, with the testimony of others, many blanks in Anne's life that we can't know exactly how to complete. There is a lot to learn; there is a lot to witness. History isn't always easy, nor should it be. Confronting the cruelty, horror, and senselessness is how we learn and (I hope) grow.

The sources are also interesting; I'm making a list of things to look for at my local library.

[Ericka Jade · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The first part of the book was interesting because it added to biography of the Anne, her family, the other families in the annex and those who were protecting them. Then it became more of a tangent circling around how Otto Frank was trying to get the diary published. But that led to some information of changing some of the text to make it more appealing and then the whole play/musical craziness where many liberties were taken to make the diary more stage worthy. I felt this part cheapened the diary but that isn't a fault of Anne or Otto's. That is just - show business. At any rate, I felt the later part was disorganized and tedious.

[Tony Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating analysis of the Diary of Anne Frank and its social, cultural and political impact. My biggest takeaway from Fraklin's book is not Holocaust-related (although it includes exceptional detail), but rather how a diary is meant to be read: "not as a book with a beginning and an end, but as a process." Just as processes evolve, so does our understanding of them, which is all the more reason Anne Frank's diary must be viewed as a living document with universal lessons and multiple interpretations. Franklin beautifully writes at the end "Let's remember her also as a teeenager behind a locked door, pen and paper at the ready: watchful, indomitable, alive."

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered this book after going down the YouTube rabbit hole on Anne Frank after rereading her diary.
This book expands on what was happening in the surrounding countries while they were in hiding, what happened to Anne and the rest of those in the annex, as told by others who saw her in the camps, along with how she has influenced others with her words.
The most poignant part was the details on how her father received her diary after learning she had passed away, and what he went through to get it published.
This was interesting and enlightening, and, unfortunately, still relevant with what's going on in the world today.

[Kelly Winkler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not finish. I picked this because I’m going to the Anne Frank house/annex this spring. I’m sure it is a well written book. Not what I was looking for. Analyzing the diary and its different versions and trying to put it in different historical perspectives got really boring and repetitive for me. It kind of ruined the concept of the diary for me. I probably just need to go back and read the diary.