The French Anne Frank
Next week, bookstores in France will begin selling the diary of Helene Berr, a young French Jewish woman whom many are describing as the "French Anne Frank:"
It starts like any other young woman's diary - with a description of hobbies, a first boyfriend, schoolmates and trips to the country - but it ends like few others. The final words are 'the horror, the horror, the horror'.
The diary begins in 1942, when Helene was 21 years old; France had been occupied by the Nazis for two years at that point, but Helene's first diary entries are not concerned with war or politics or the events of the world:
The early pages of the diary are full of descriptions of the countryside around Paris - 'I went to gather fruit in the upper orchard ... the blue sky and the sun made the dew drops sparkle and joy flooded through me like a spell', she writes.
'She is barely aware of her Jewish identity, the war has barely touched her and she is largely unaware of what is happening elsewhere in Europe,' said the book's editor, Antoine Sabbagh. 'She is in love for the first time. But then things start to change. The book reads like a novel, but with a terribly sad end.'
Like nearly everyone in Europe, Helene was unaware of gas chambers or firing squads or death camps. Over time, rumors of such things began to spread, and Helene started to realize the likelihood that this would also be her fate. From that point, she continued to keep her diary as a record to be passed on to her fiancé, who was off fighting in the Resistance at the time. If she disappeared, she wanted him to know her final thoughts and actions:
'I know why I am keeping this journal,' she writes. 'I know that I want it to be given to Jean if I am not here when he comes back. I don't want to disappear without him knowing everything I have been thinking about while he has been away - or at least a part of it.'
Helene Berr was deported by the Nazis in February 1944; she died at the Belsen concentration camp just days before it was liberated by British soldiers. Her diary was indeed passed on to her fiancé, and her niece has now decided to publish it.
There's no word on when we might expect an English translation; for now, it's only being released in French.