Wednesday, January 13th. 1943
Dearest Kitty,
This morning I was constantly interrupted, and as a result I haven’t been able to finish a single thing I’ve begun.
We have a new pastime, namely, filling packages with powdered gravy. The gravy is one of Gies & Co.’s products. Mr. Kugler hasn’t been able to find anyone else to fill the packages, and besides, it’s cheaper if we do the job. It’s the kind of work they do in prisons. It’s incredibly boring and makes us dizzy and giggly.
Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They’re allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they’re robbed of these possessions on the way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return from shopping to find their houses sealed, their families gone. The Christians in Holland are also living in fear because their sons are being sent to Germany. Everyone is scared. Every night hundreds of planes pass over Holland on their way to German cities, to sow their bombs on German soil. Every hour hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of people are being killed in Russia and Africa. No one can keep out of the conflict, the entire world is at war, and even though the Allies are doing better, the end is nowhere in sight.
As for us, we’re quite fortunate. Luckier than millions of people. It’s quiet and safe here, and we’re using our money to buy food. We’re so selfish that we talk about “after the war” and look forward to new clothes and shoes, when actually we should be saving every penny to help others when the war is over, to salvage whatever we can.
The children in this neighborhood run around in thin shirts and wooden shoes. They have no coats, no caps, no stockings and no one to help them. Gnawing on a carrot to still their hunger pangs, they walk from their cold houses through cold streets to an even colder classroom. Things have gotten so bad in Holland that hordes of children stop passersby in the streets to beg for a piece of bread.
I could spend hours telling you about the suffering the war has brought, but I’d only make myself more miserable. All we can do is wait, as calmly as possible, for it to end. Jews and Christians alike are waiting, the whole world is waiting, and many are waiting for death.
Yours,
Anne
#Anne Frank
January 13th. 1935 Under a League of Nations Plebiscite for Saar’s return to Reich secures 91% vote in favour.
January 13th. 1942 10,000 Lodz Ghetto Jews for Forced Labour.
Wednesday January 13th. 1943 “..Today I remember all that ..suffered.” Herschel Zynoberg.
January 13th. Nazi’s brutally suppress dissent in Bulgaria, executing 36 anti-Nazi protesters in the capital of Sofia.
Wednesday January 13th. 1943 Anne writes frankly in her Diary for us, to deliver a taste of what fear and imagination can all add up to conspire to fix the mind on the horrors that exist outside.
January 13th 1944 Josiah Dubois, Randolph Paul, and John Pehle, three U.S. Treasury Department officials, present a Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this US Government to the Murder of European Jews, accusing the State Department of preventing action from being taken to rescue Jews. Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr., reacts strongly.
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