TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1943
Dearest Kitty,
Things are going well on the political front. Italy has bahe Fascist Party. The people are fighting the Fascists in many places -- even the army has joihe fight. How a try like that tio wage war against England?
Our beautiful radio was taken away last week. Dussel was very angry at Mr. Kugler for turning it in on the appointed day. Dussel is slipping lower and lower in my estimation, and hes already below zero. hatever he says about politics, histeography or ything else is so ridiculous that I hardly dare repeat it: Hitler will fade from history; the harbor in Rotterdam is bigger than the one in Hamburg; the English are idiots for not taking the opportunity to bomb Italy to smithereec., etc.
We just had a third air raid. I decided to grit my teeth and practice being ceous.
Mrs. van Daan, the one who always said "Let them fall" and "Better to end with a bang than not to end at all," is the most cowardly one among us. She was shaking like a leaf this m and even burst into tears. She was forted by her husband, with whom she retly declared a truce after a week of squabbling; I nearly got
seal at the sight.
Mouschi has now proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that having a cat has disadvantages as well as advahe whole house is crawling with fleas, and its getting worse each day. Mr. Kleiman sprinkled yellow powder in every nook and y, but the fleas havent taken the slightest notice. Its making us all very jittery;
were forever imagining a bite on our arms and legs or other parts of our bodies, so we leap up and do a few exercises, si gives us an excuse to take a better look at our arms or necks. But now were paying the price for having had so little physical exercise; were so stiff we hardly turn our heads. The real calisthenics fell by the wayside long ago.
Yours, Anne
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4,1943
Dearest Kitty,
Now that weve been in hiding for a little over a year, you know a great deal about our lives. Still, I t possibly tell you everything, sis all so different pared to ordinary times and ordinary people. heless, to give you a closer look into our lives, from time to time Ill describe part of an ordinary day. Ill start with the evening and night.
Nine in the evening. Bedtime always begins in the Annex with an enormous hustle and bustle. Chairs are shifted, beds pulled out, blas unfolded -- nothing stays where it is during the daytime. I sleep on a small divan, which is only five feet long, so we have to add a few chairs to make it longer. forter, sheets, pillows, blas:
everything has to be removed from Dussel s bed, where its kept during the day.
In the room theres a terrible creaking: thats Margots folding bed bei up.
More blas and pillows, anything to make the wooden slats a bit more fortable.
Upstairs it sounds like thunder, but its only Mrs. van D.s bed being shoved against the window so that Her Majesty, arrayed in her pink bed jacket, sniff the night air through her delicate little nostrils.
Nine oclock. After Peters finished, its my turn for the bathroom. I wash myself from head to toe, and more often than not I find a tiny flea floating in the sink (only during the hot months, weeks or days). I brush my teeth, curl my hair, manicure my nails and dab peroxide on my upper lip to bleach the black hairs -- all this ihan half an hour.
hirty. I throw on my bathrobe. With soap in on