The Role of Friends and Family in "The Diary of Anne Frank".

In The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne reveals the importance of friends and family in times of war. Throughout the book, Anne and those in the annex must depend on those around them for their emotional and physical survival. They must take their mind off the war by forcing themselves to think about non war-related subjects to remain sane, which they do by thinking about the others in the annex. Living in the Annex alone would have drastically changed their well-being.

Anne Kristine Osland

Anne Frank

Het Achterhuis (1947), cover of the first edition ...

At the beginning of the diary, when Anne is not yet in hiding, she is very distracted by her friends from the events of the war and seems to ignore the fact that her people are being discriminated against. This may be because she is still quite young at an age of 12, and still has her childish innocence. This can also be because she does not want to think about the war because of the horrific treatment that Jews were receiving from the Nazi regime. All of her entries before going into hiding contain very little mention of the war or the changes in her life caused by it. On June 15, 1942, her diary entry contains nothing but descriptions of her friends from school. She starts this diary entry thus; "I had my birthday party on Sunday afternoon...I'll start by saying a few things about my school and my class, beginning from the students." She then describes all her classmates, and mentions not a word of the war. Despite the circumstances around her, she seems quite preoccupied with her friends who take her mind off the war. Anne's entries before being isolated in the Annex are much less about the conditions she must live in compared with those after being isolated from her friends. Whether...