THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1943Dearest Kitty,Mrs. van D. has a new niame -- weve started calling her Mrs. Beaverbrook. Of course, that doesnt mean anything to you, so let me expin. A certain Mr.Beaverbrook often talks on the English radio about what he siders to be the far too le bombardment of Germany. Mrs. van Daan, who always tradicts everyone, including Churchill and the news reports, is in plete agreement with Mr.Beaverbrook. So we thought it would be a good idea for her to be married to him, and since she was fttered by the notion, weve decided to call her Mrs. Beaverbrook from now on.Were getting a new warehouse employee, sihe old one is beio Germany. Thats bad for him but good for us because the new one wont be famthar with the building. Were still afraid of the men who work in the warehouse.Gandhi is eating again.The bck market is doing a booming business. If we had enough moo pay the ridiculous prices, we could stuff ourselves silly. reengrocer buys potatoes from the "Wehrmacht" and brings them in sacks to the private office. Since he suspects were hiding here, he makes a point of ing during lunchtime, when the warehouse employees are out.So much pepper is being ground at the moment that we sneeze and cough with every breath we take. Everyone who es upstairs greets us with an "ah-CHOO." Mrs. van D. swears she wont go downstairs; one more whiff of pepper and shes going to get sick.I dont think Father has a very nice business. Noth ing but pe and pepper. As long as youre in the food business, why not make dy?A veritable thuorm of words came crashing down on me again this m.The air fshed with so many coarse expressions that my ears were ringing with "Annes bad this" annd "van Daans good that." Fire and brimstone!Yours, AnneWEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 1943Dearest Kitty,We had a short circuit st night, and besides that, the guns were booming away until dawn. I still havent gotten over my fear of pnes and shooting, and I crawl intoFathers bed nearly every night for fort. I know it sounds childish, but wait till it happens to you! The ack-ack guns make so muoise you t hear your own voice. Mrs. Beaverbrook, the fatalist, practically burst into tears and said in a timid little voice, "Oh, its so awful. Oh, the guns are so loud!" -- which is another way of saying "Im so scared.”It didnt seem nearly as bad by dlelight as it did in the dark. I was shivering, as if I had a fever, and begged Father tht the dle. He was adamant: there was to be no light. Suddenly we heard a burst of mae-gun fire, and thats ten times worse than antiaircraft guns.Mother jumped out of bed and, to Pims great annoyance, lit the dle. Her resolute ao his grumbling was, "After all, Anne is not an ex-soldier!" And that was the end of that!Have I told you any of Mrs. van D.s other fears? I dont think so. To keep you up to date oest adventures in the Secret Annex, I should tell you this as well.One night Mrs. van D. thought she heard loud footsteps iid she was so afraid of burgrs, she woke her husband. At that very same moment, the thieves disappeared, and the only sound Mr. van D. could hear was the frightened pounding of his fatalistic wifes heart. "Oh, Putti!" she cried. (Putti is Mrs. van D.s pet name for her husband.) "They must have taken all our sausages and dried beans. And what about Peter? Oh, do you thiers still safe and sound in his bed?”"Im sure they havent stoleer. Stop being such a ninny, a me get back to sleep!”Impossible. Mrs. van D. was too scared to sleep.A few nights ter the entire van Daan family was awakened by ghostly noises. Peter went to the attic with a fshlight and -- scurry, scurry -- what do you think he saw running away? A whole slew of enormous rats!Once we knew who the thieves were, we let Mouschi sleep iid never saw our uninvited guests again. . . at least not at night.A few evenings ago (it was seven-thirty and still light), Peter went up to the loft to get some old neers. He had to hold on tightly to the trapdoor to climb down the dder. He put down his hand without looking, and nearly fell off the dder from shod pain. Without realizing it, hed put his hand on a rge rat, which had bitten him in the arm. By the time he reached us, white as a sheet and with his kneesknog, the blood had soaked through his pajamas. No.9９lｉｂ. wonder he was so shaken, siting a rat isnt much fun, especially when it takes a k out of your arm.Yours, AnneFRIDAY, MARCH 12, 1943Dearest Kitty,May I introduce: Mama Frank, the childrens advocate! Extra butter for the youngsters, the problems fag todays youth -- you , and Mother defends the younger geion. After a skirmish or two, she always gets her way.One of the jars of pickled tongue is spoiled. A feast for Mouschi and Boche.You have Boche yet, despite the fact that she was here before we went into hiding. Shes the warehouse and office cat, who keeps the rats at bay ioreroom.Her odd, politiame easily be expined. For a while the firm Gies Co. had two cats: one for the warehouse and one for the attic. Their paths crossed from time to time, whivariably resulted in a fight. The warehouse cat was always the aggressor, while the attic cat was ultimately the victor, just as in politics. So the warehouse cat was he German, or "Boche," and the attic cat the Englishman, or "Tommy." Sometime after that they got rid of Tommy, but Boche is always there to amuse us when we go downstairs.VVeve eaten so many brown beans and navy beans that I t stand to look at them. Just thinking about them makes me sick.Our evening serving of bread has been celed.Daddy just said that hes not in a very cheerful mood. His eyes look so sad again, the poor man!I t tear myself away from the book A Knock at the Door by Ina Bakker Boudier.This family saga is extremely well written, but the parts dealing with war, writers and the emancipation of wome very good. To be ho, these subjects dont i me much.Terrible bombing raids on Germany. Mr. van Daan is grouchy. The reason: thecigarette she.The debate about whether or not to start eating t九-九-藏-書-網he ed food ended in our favor.I t wear any of my shoes, except my ski boots, which are not very practical around the house. A pair of straw thongs that were purchased for 6.50 guilders were worn down to the soles within a week. Maybe Miep will be able te up something on the bck market.Its time to cut Fathers hair. Pim swears that I do such a good job hell never go to another barber after the war. If only I didnt nick his ear so often!Yours, AHURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1943My dearest Kitty,Turkeys ehe war. Great excitement. Anxiously awaiting radio reports.FRIDAY, MARCH 19, 1943Dearest Kitty,Ihan an hour, joy was followed by disappoi. Turkey hasered the war yet. It was only a et mialking about Turkey giving up its rality sometime soon. The neer vendor in Dam Square was shouting "Turkey on Engnds side!" and the papers were being snatched out of his hands. This was how wed heard the encing rumor.Thousand-guilder notes are being decred invalid. Thatll be a blow to the bck marketeers and others like them, but even more to pe Ie in hiding and anyone else with mohat t be ated for. To turn in a thousand-guilder bill, you have to be able to state how you came by it and provide proof. They still be used to pay taxes, but only until week. The five-hundred notes will pse at the same time. Gies Co. still had some unated-for thousand-guilder bills, which they used to pay their estimated taxes for the ing years, so everything seems to be aboveboard.Dussel has received an old-fashioned, foot-operated dentists drill. That means Ill probably be getting a thh checkup soon.Dussel is terribly x when it es to obeying the rules of the house. Not only does he write letters to his Charlotte, hes also carrying on a chatty correspondeh various other people. Margot, the Annexs Dutch teacher, has been correg these letters for him. Father has forbidden him to keep up the practid Margot has stopped correg the letters, but I think it wont be long before he starts up again.The Fuhrer has been talking to wounded soldiers. We listened on the radio, and it athetic. The questions and answers went something like this:"My name is Heinrich Scheppel.”"Where were you wounded?”"Near Stalingrad.”"What kind of wound is it?”"Two frostbitte and a fracture of the left arm.”This is a report of the hideous puppet show aired on the radio. The wounded seemed proud of their wounds -- the more the better. One was so beside himself at the thought of shaking hands (I presume he still had one) with the Fuhrer that he could barely say a word.I happeo drop Dussels soap on the floor and step on it. Now theres a whole piece missing. Ive already asked Father to pensate him for the damages, especially since Dussel only gets one bar of inferior wartime soap a month.Yours, AHURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1943Dearest Kitty,Mother, Father, Margot and I were sitting quite pleasantly together st night wheer suddenly came in and whispered in Fathers ear. I caught the words "a barrel falling over in the warehouse" and "someone fiddling with the door.”Margot heard it too, but was trying to calm me down, since Id turned white as chalk and was extremely nervous. The three of us waited while Father aer wentdownstairs. A minute or two ter Mrs. van Daan came up from where shed been listening to the radio and told us that Pim had asked her to turn it off and tiptoe upstairs. But you know what happens when youre trying to be quiet -- the old stairs creaked twice as loud. Five mier Peter and Pim, the color drained from their faces, appeared again to rete their experiehey had positiohemselves uhe staircase and waited. Nothing happehen all of a sudden they heard a couple of bangs, as if two doors had been smmed shut ihe house. Pim bounded up the stairs, while Peter went to warn Dussel, who finally pre sented himself upstairs, though not without kig up a fuss and making a lot of hen we all tiptoed in our stoged feet to the van Daans on the floor. Mr. van D. had a bad cold and had already goo bed, so we gathered around his bedside and discussed our suspis in a whisper. Every time Mr.van D. coughed loudly, Mrs. van D. and I nearly had a nervous fit. He kept coughing until someone came up with the bright idea of giving him codeine. His cough subsided immediately.Once again we waited and waited, but heard nothing. Finally we came to the clusion that the burgrs had taken to their heels when they heard footsteps in an otherwise quiet building. The problem now was that the chairs in the private office were ly grouped around the radio, which was tuo Engnd. If the burgrs had forced the door and the air-raid wardeo notice it and call the police, there could be very serious repercus sions. So Mr. van Daan got up, pulled on his coat and pants, put on his hat and cautiously followed Father dowairs, with Peter (armed with a heavy hammer, to be on the safe side) right behind him. The dies (including Margot and me) waited in suspeil the meurned five mier aed that there was no sign of any activity in the building. We agreed not to run any water or flush the toilet; but since everyoomach was ing from all the tension, you imagihe stench after wed each had a turn ihroom.Is like these are always apanied by other disasters, and this was no exception. Number ohe Westertoren bells stopped chiming, and Id always found them so f. wo: Mr. Voskuijlleft early st night, and we werent sure if hed givehe key and shed fotten to lock the door.But that was of little importanow. The night had just begun, aill werent sure what to expect. We were somewhat reassured by the fact that betwee-fifteen -- when the burgr had first ehe building and put our lives in jeopardy, ahirty, we hadnt heard a sound. The more we thought about it, the less likely it seemed that a burgr would have forced a door so early in the evening,when there were still people out oreets. Besides that, it occurred to us that the warehouse ma the Keg pa dht still have been at work.What with the excitement and the thin walls, its easy to mistake the sounds.Besides, your imagination often pys tricks on you in moments of danger.So we went to bed, though not to sleep. Father and Mother and Mr. Dussel were awake most of the night, and Im not exaggerating when I say that I hardly got a wink of sleep. This m the me downstairs to see if the outside door was still locked, but all was well!Of course, we gave the entire office staff a blow-by-blow at of the i, which had been far from pleasant. Its much easier to ugh at these kinds of things after theyve happened, and Bep was the only one who took us seriously.Yours, AnnePS. This m the toilet was clogged, and Father had to sti a long wooden pole and fish out several pounds of excrement and strawberry recipes (which is what we use for toilet paper these days). Afterward we burhe pole.SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 1943Dearest Kitty,Weve finished our shorthand course and are now w on improving our speed.Arent we smart! Let me tell you more about my "time killers" (this is what I call my courses, because all we ever do is try to make the days go by as quickly as possible so we are that much closer to the end of our time here). I adore mythology, espe cially the Greek and Roman gods. Everyohinks my i is just a passing fancy, siheyve never heard of a teenager with an appreciation of mythology. Well then, I guess Im the first!Mr. van Daan has a cold. Or rather, he has a scratchy throat, but hes making an enormous to-do over it. He gargles with ile tea, coats the roof of his mouth with a tincture of myrrh and rubs Menthotum over his chest, nose, gums and tongue.And to top it off, hes in a foul mood!Rauter, some German bigwig, retly gave a speech. "All Jews must be out of the German-occupied territories before July 1. The province of Utrecht will be sed of Jews [as if they were cockroaches] between April 1 and May 1, and the provinces of North and South Holween May 1 and June 1." These poor people are beingshipped off to filthiy sughterhouses like a herd of sid ed cattle. But Ill say no more on the subject. My own thoughts give me nightmares!One good piece of news is that the Labor Exge was set on fire in an act of sabotage. A few days ter the ty Clerks Office also went up in fmes. Men posing as German police bound and gagged the guards and mao destroy some important dots.Yours, Anne