Little Life Lost (Anne Frank - Melissa Muller)

Name: karenuk

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Product:	Anne Frank - Melissa Muller
Date:	08/08/03 (135 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great biography, well researched, well written

Disadvantages: sad

'Since the end of World War II, wars have been fought somewhere on earth on all but four days.' (p. xii)

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I read Anne Frank's Diary as a teenager, when I was around the same age as she was when she wrote it. Now my interest in her has been reawakened. This time, my daughter is around the age Anne was when she wrote her diary in the Secret Annex in Amsterdam, where she remained hidden for just over two years.

The reason for my latest interest in Anne Frank - and three of my children are also fascinated by her life - is the recently televised two-part film about her. This was shown over a Bank Holiday weekend and was compelling viewing. I sat up late watching both parts, with my three eldest children aged 12 ½, 11 and 10 years old. It moved all of us.

The film was based on a 1998 book called Anne Frank - The Biography written by Melissa Muller. I ordered the book from the library and finished reading the 300 pages or so. Afterwards, my husband bought me the book for my first wedding anniversary present.

I feel this biography is probably the best researched and most historically accurate story of Anne's short life. I always feel sceptical of biographies. They often seem to throw up more questions than answers and often paint such an incomplete or obsequious picture, that their value is questionable. This biography, however, is one of the best I have read.

The back of the book contains pages of source references, so you can see where each fact or anecdote came from. Miep Gies (one of the helpers who looked after the Jews hiding in the Secret Annex) co-operated with the author and wrote four pages at the end, so her memories of events are essential to Anne's story.

There are also interviews with Otto Frank quoted (He was the only one of the Jews in the Annex to survive the War, dying in 1980.), letters, official documents and the stories of those who survived. Var
ious members of Anne's family, school friends and former neighbours were also alive at the time of the book's publication.

This biography creates a complete picture. I found the history fascinating, but never dull. I have probably learned more about WWII reading about Anne Frank than I ever did at school. In the biography, there are many times where the historical context or stories of other people's lives take over, so you almost forget it is a book about Anne. This is a positive comment though, not a criticism. Anne was only part of a much wider world.

The focus of this book reminded me of a map shown on the News. Sometimes, you would be learning about the situation in Europe, then the camera would focus on Germany or Austria or Holland. Then the camera would zoom in on Amsterdam, on Merwedeplein, on Prinsengracht, inside the Secret Annex, into Anne's world.

I think just reading Anne Frank's famous diary can give a distorted picture of the young girl. I have written diaries myself over many years and I am sure I have often only seen things from my viewpoint, painted my side of a conflict with more dignity than it deserved, criticised my friends and hated my parents. Anne's diary is, by definition, a biased account and only one side of the story.

Some readers of her diary have commented how she came across as precocious, cocky, arrogant, unruly and generally not a very pleasant child. This can be a way she is viewed if the diary is read out of context. Reading Melissa Muller's biography helped put everything into perspective.

Anne's early life was not without incident. Her parents' business ventures were often fraught and they had periods of financial difficulties. This and their Jewish status in an increasingly dangerous world meant several house moves - always stressful for a young girl, who has to leave behind her friends and neighbours.

Their biggest move was from Germ
any to Holland when Anne was only five years old. Anne had to learn Dutch; she had to begin school in a strange new country. The political climate also meant that Germans - even German Jews like Anne and her family - were treated with suspicion in some quarters, as the impending threat of Hitler became more certain.

Once the Germans invaded Holland, Anne had to undergo other major changes. Even before they were forced into hiding, the Franks had to suffer the injustices meted out to Jews by the Nazis - curfews, separate schools, being forbidden to use public transport, being forced to wear the yellow star on their clothes, living under the constant threat of what might happen.

Is it any wonder that Anne grew up so quickly? Once in hiding, she had to go through puberty imprisoned in a small cluster of rooms with seven other people. She had to share her bedroom with an adult male who she barely knew. She couldn't escape from her mother during those teenage years when you often hate your parents. She couldn't run off her energy in the open fields. Her only outlet was her diary.

It was her maturity that spared her the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Young teenagers were often 'selected' for immediate execution, along with those too old, too ill or too young to work. Anne was fifteen years and three months, but looked older.

This biography takes you on a journey of Anne's life, studying her relatives, her relationships, friendships, behaviour and her writing. It follows her from birth through her childhood, adolescence, the two years in hiding and her final seven months from Westerbork to Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen where she died of typhus, just days after her elder sister Margot (19).

It is not an idealised kow-towing biography. Muller is fully aware of Anne's faults and while perhaps suggesting causes for some of them, she never tries to paint her as being perfect.

While Anne's story is ulti
mately a tragic one, the biography has many optimistic sides to it. The one I was left with was that Anne did achieve her dream. She wanted to be a writer, she wanted her diaries to be published, so everyone could read her story and learn from it.

'I don't want to have lived for nothing!' (March 25, 1944)

'...my greatest wish is to become... a famous writer! I want to publish a book entitled Het Achterhuis after the war!' (May 11, 1944)

Het Achterhuis - The Secret Annex - is a collection of her short stories and is available to buy, along with her diary. Anne achieved her ambition. It is such a shame that she will never know.

I think one of the most poignant parts of this book is the epilogue, where there are mini-biographies of many of the people mentioned throughout. While it is satisfying to read how many people survived, married, had children and successful careers, it also makes the brief life of Anne Frank particularly tragic.

She, too, could have been alive today.

She would have been 74 this year.

Summary: