The Diary of a Young Girl-Anne Frank
Continuing Thursday, March 04, 1943 onwards

They are also getting a new employee in the warehouse because the old one is being shifted to Germany. They are afraid of the men working in the warehouse below. It gave them a kind of satisfaction that the new employee would be unaware about the building quite for a long time.

Next, she mentions about black-marketing and rise in prices. The green-grocer suspects that some people are hiding in the warehouse building, that is why, he sometimes brings potatoes to the private office during lunchtime when the warehouse employees are out.

Everyone is sneezing and coughing because pepper is being ground at the moment.

Mrs. Van Daan swears not to go downstairs as she is going to be ill if she gets one more whiff of pepper.

Lastly, she writes that irritating words are once again being hurled at her.

Wednesday, March 10, 1943

Anne begins this diary entry by saying that there was a short circuit in the warehouse causing black-out for them.

Another thing she reports that sounds created by guns outside the building are causing a lot of disturbance at night and because of that, Anne is unable to sleep properly. She has to sneak (go secretly) into her father’s bed although it seems childish to her. Mrs. Van Daan is also scared of the guns going off intermittently (happening at intervals) at night.

Anne feels good in candlelight, so she requests her father to relight the candle. He refused her to do so as he does not want light in the room. In the meantime, ‘a burst of machine gun-fire is heard. Her mother jumped out of bed and lit the candle.

A Suspected Burglary in the Secret Annex

Next, Anne reports about Mrs. Van Daan’s suspicion about a burglary in the warehouse. Mrs. Van Daan thought that there were burglars in the attic, so she woke up her husband. After that, she hears no sound except that of her “frightened pounding heart”.

“Oh, Putti”, she cried. (Putti is the nick name given to Mr. van Daan by Mrs. Van Daan)

“They must have taken all our sausages and dried beans. And what about Peter? Oh, do you think Peter’s still safe and sound in his bed?”

“I’m sure they haven’t stolen Peter. Stop being such a ninny (stupid), and let me get back to sleep!”

But Mrs. Van Daan is too scared to sleep any more.

A few nights later, the entire van Daan family heard noises created by ghosts. Peter quietly went upstairs to Attic to check. What he saw there was amazing. Peter saw a large number of rats eating beans there in the Attic. After that, they made the cat Mouschi to sleep in the Attic at night to scare away the rats.

Anne reports another incident. It is about Peter when he was injured by a big rat. He had gone to the Attic to bring some old newspapers. When he was coming down from the ladder, suddenly his hand was put on a large rat which at once bit him in the arm. There was profuse bleeding when he reached down in shock.

Friday, March 12, 1943

In this diary entry, Anne writes about two cats, one is named German or “Boche”, while the other is the English, or “Tommy”. Boche lives in the warehouse below the hiding place and Tommy lives up in the attic in their hiding place. The warehouse cat is the aggressor while the attic cat is ultimately the victor.

Anne further writes about a few things more.

She is fed up of eating beans. Their evening bread is cancelled. Anne’s father is looking sad. Anne is busy reading the book “A Knock at the Door” by Ina Bakkor Boud…? 

She also writes about terrible bombing raids on Germany. Mr. van Daan is feeling grouchy (bad tempered) he is running shortage of cigarettes.

Anne is unable to wear any of her shoes except her ski boots.

Peter’s father’s hair need trimming and he prefers to get them cut by Anne.

March 12, 1943

All the eight of them in the secret Annex are excited to listen to the radio about war news as it is believed that Turkey has also entered the war.

Friday, March 19, 1943

We come to know the following facts from this entry.

Turkey has not entered the war. It made them sad.

Thousand and five hundred guilder notes cease to be in circulation. It has been done to curb black money.

Mr. Dussel has got  old fashioned foot-operated dentist drill.

Anne’s father is very much careless about following rules of the house. He is also busy writing letters to various people in Dutch language. Margot has been correcting the language of them. But at present, she has stopped doing that.

Adolf Hitler (called by the title ‘Fiiherer) has been talking to the terribly wounded soldiers. The inmates of the secret Annex have listened Hitler conversing with the soldiers on the radio.

Those soldiers did not mind their wounds and they were over-elated to shake hands with Hitler.