ANNE FRANKS DIARY CUTS

12 June 1942

I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.

COMMENT ADDED BY ANNE ON 28 SEPTEMBER 1942:

So far you truly have been a great source of comfort to me, and so has Kitty, whom I now write to regularly. This way of keeping a diary is much nicer, and now I can hardly wait for those moments when I'm able to write in you. Oh, I'm so glad I brought you along!

SUNDAY. 14 JUNE 1942
I'll begin from the moment I got you, the moment I saw you lying on the table among my other birthday presents. (I went along when you were bought, but that doesn't count.) On Friday, 12 June, I was awake at six o'clock, which isn't surprising, since it was my birthday. But I'm not allowed to get up at that hour, so I had to control my curiosity until quarter to seven. When I couldn't wait any longer, I went to the dining-room, where Moortje (the cat) welcomed inc by rubbing against my legs.

A little after seven I went to Daddy and Mummy and then to the living-room to open my presents, and you were the first thing I saw, maybe one of my nicest presents. Then a bouquet of roses, some peonies and a potted plant. From Daddy and Mummy I got a blue blouse, a game, a bottle of grape juice, which to my mind tastes a bit like wine (after all, wine is made from grapes), a puzzle, a jar of cold cream, 2.50 guilders and a gift token for two books.

I got another book as well, Camera Obscurer (but Margot already has it, so I exchanged mine for something else), a plate of homemade biscuits (which I made myself, of course, since I've become quite an expert at making biscuits), lots of sweets and a strawberry tart from Mother. And a letter from Grammy, right on time, but of course that was just a coincidence. Then Hanneli came to pick rile up, and we went to school.

A little while later Margot appeared in the kitchen doorway looking very agitated. 'Father has received a call-up notice from the SS,' she whispered. 'Mother has gone to see Mr van Daan.'
• Mr van Daan is Father's business partner and a good friend.
I was stunned. A call-up: everyone knows what that means. Visions of concen-tration camps and lonely cells raced through my head. How could we let Father go to such a fate? 'Of course he's not going,' declared Margot as we waited for Mother in the living-room.

'Mother's gone to Mr van Daan to ask whether we can move to our hiding place tomorrow. The van Daans are going with us. There will be seven of us altogether.' Silence. We couldn't speak. The thought of Father off visiting someone in the Jewish Hospital and completely unaware of what was hap-pening, the long wait for Mother, the heat, the suspense — all this reduced us to silence.

Suddenly the doorbell rang again. 'That's Hello,' I said. 'Don't open the door!' exclaimed Margot to stop me. But it wasn't necessary, since we heard Mother and Mr van Dun downstairs talking to Hello, and then the two of them came inside and shut the door behind them. Every time the bell rang, either Margot or I had to tiptoe downstairs to see if it was Father, and we didn't let anyone else in. Margot and I were sent from the room, as Mr van Daan wanted to talk to Mother alone. When she and I were sitting in our bedroom, Margot told me that the call-up was not for Father, but for her.

At this second shock, I began to cry. Margot is sixteen — apparently they want to send girls her age away on their own. But thank goodness she won't be going; Mother had said so herself, which must be what Father had meant when he talked to me about our going into hiding. Hiding ... where would we hide? In the city? In the country? In a house? In a shack? When, where, how ? These were questions I wasn't allowed to ask, but they still kept running through my mind. Margot and I started packing our most important belongings into a satchel.

The first thing I stuck in was this diary, and then curlers, handkerchiefs, school-books, a comb and some old letters. Preoccupied by the thought of going into hiding, I stuck the craziest things in the satchel, but I'm not sorry. Memories mean more to me than dresses. Father finally came home around five o'clock, and we rang Mr Kleiman to ask if he could come by that evening. Mr van Daan left and went to get Miep. Miep arrived and promised to return later that night, taking with her a bag full of shoes, dresses, jackets, underwear and stockings.

After that it was quiet in our flat; none of us felt like eating. It was still hot, and everything was very strange. We had rented out our big upstairs room to a Mr Goldschmidt, a divorced man in his thirties, who apparently had nothing to do that evening, since despite all our polite hints he hung around until ten o'clock. Miep and Jan Gies came at eleven. Miep, who's worked for Father's company since 1933, has become a close friend, and so has her husband Jan. Once again, shoes, stockings, books and underwear disappeared into Miep's bag and Jan's deep pockets. At eleven-thirty they too disappeared.