CHAPTER SEVEN

Thursday, 1 October 1942

Yesterday I was very frightened. At eight o’clock the doorbell suddenly rang. I thought that the Germans were coming to get us. But everybody said that someone only rang for a joke, or that maybe it was the postman, and I felt calm again.

Peter can be very funny sometimes. We both like to dress up in silly clothes. One evening, he put on one of his mother’s tight dresses, and I wore his suit! Everyone laughed so much! Miep bought new skirts for Margot and me at The Bijenkorf. They look like potato bags!

Friday, 9 October 1942

The news is very bad today. The Germans are taking away many of our Jewish friends. They are sent to concentration camps at Westerbork, or even further away. We think many of them are murdered there. I feel terrible. The English radio says that the Germans are killing them with gas. Perhaps that’s the quickest way to die. Perhaps you don’t suffer so much that way.

Tuesday, 20 October 1942

My hand is still shaking as I write this. Two hours ago we heard an awful noise at our bookcase door. The knocking didn’t stop, and someone was pushing and pulling at the door. Perhaps they had come to arrest us! We were white with fear! But at last we heard Mr Kleinian’s voice. ‘Open up, it’s me!’ The door was stuck, and he couldn’t open it.

We had a good time on Monday. Miep and Jan spent the night with us. We cooked specially for them, and the meal tasted wonderful.

Monday, 9 November 1942

Yesterday was Peters sixteenth birthday. He had a game and a cigarette lighter – he doesn’t smoke much, but the lighter looks good!

There was a big surprise too. Mr van Daan heard that the English have reached Tunis, Algiers, Casablanca and Oran. It is not the end of the war yet, but perhaps we can hope for the end now. Perhaps it will soon be history.

Well, what about food in the Annexe? A man brings bread every day, a very nice friend of Mr Kleinian’s. And we’ve stored a hundred tins of food here. We can buy ration books on the black market, and we’ve also bought three hundred pounds of beans. We decided to move them to the attic, and Peter was given the job. He succeeded in getting five sacks upstairs, but the sixth sack burst, and a river of beans poured downstairs! I was standing at the bottom of the stairs. Peter couldn’t stop laughing when he saw me in a sea of brown beans. Unfortunately though, the beans are very small and have disappeared into all the holes. Whenever we go upstairs now, we look for a few more beans!