Anne Frank’s Last Diary Entry

The Fellowship  |  August 1, 2017

This August 1, the Jewish people are observing Tisha B’Av, the fast of mourning that is the saddest on the Jewish calendar. Seventy-three years ago, writes The Jerusalem Post’s Becky Brothman, August 1 was also the date of Anne Frank’s final diary entry:

August 1, 1944 was the date of Anne Frank’s last diary entry. Frank wrote the diary during the two-year period that her family hid in the attic of Opekta, her father Otto’s former place of business, in Amsterdam.

The Frank family went into hiding on June 12, 1942 and Anne began writing in her diary two days later on the 14th. From June 14, 1942 to August 1, 1944, the teenager would document life inside the attic in her diary, which she addressed to “Kitty,” ultimately becoming one of the most complete first-hand accounts of a Holocaust victim…

Three days after her last diary entry, on August 4, 1944, German police entered the attic and arrested all the occupants.

15-year-old Anne’s entry from August 1, 1944 reads as follows:

Dearest Kitty,

“A bundle of contradictions” was the end of my previous letter and is the beginning of this one. Can you please tell me exactly what “a bundle of contradictions” is? What does “contradiction” mean? Like so many words, it can be interpreted in two ways: a contradiction imposed from without and one imposed from within.

The former means not accepting other people’s opinions, always knowing best, having the last word; in short, all those unpleasant traits for which I’m known. The latter, for which I’m not known, is my own secret.

As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two.