DG: Nice to see you, Ann. You've become quite a popular - and enigmatic - figure since your candid diary was published.
AF: Oh why thank you! Well I always aim to be frank with people....*smiles coyly*
DG: That is the wit we've come to expect, Ann! You were always aiming to keep your mind sharp!
AF: But seriously, I have to tell you, when I was writing to Kitty, my journal, it was a lot easier to be so candid, like the time when Mr. Dussel was frighteningly rude to me, deriding me as selfish and obnoxious. I merely begged him to reconsider the request. In my journal I wrote my true feelings about him. I found him pedantic and small-minded!
DG: This was the issue over you studying at the table in the room that you two shared. Can you tell us what kind of studying you did while you were in hiding?
AG: I learned shorthand, but for the most part I read.
Anne Kristine Osland
Dutch Consul-General Teppema, Madame Teppema and R...
Dutch Consul-General Teppema, Madame Teppema and R...I read novels mostly. But anything I could get my hands on. The written word was gold in the annexe. There wasn't anything else to do!
DG: Anne, tell us, what was your favorite book?
AF: Well I always wanted to read mummy's book; Heeren, Vrouwen en Knechten, but she decided I wasn't talented or mature enough to read it. So I went ahead and read the Cissy van Marxveldt series "Joop ter Heul." I have always thought that mark of a great book was that you could count on it for content everytime you came back to it. Een Zomerzotheid always had me in stiches! My mum didn't appreciate this but...it's her fault you know....
DG: Tell us about your relationship with her.
AF: I realize that she had it hard...