The Diary the World Knows

"When I write, I can shake off all my cares."

- Anne Frank

A personal journal became irrelevant when the Internet's popularity soared. All of a sudden, most people want the world to know what they're thinking (or feeling). As if. Everything became less interesting, if not pointless. Then again, we're living in a less-exciting time.

How important was the diary

The diary was valued back then because the world was in danger. The journal of Samuel Pepys, English naval administrator, gave readers a peek into the second Dutch War. There were moments of terror and tension, but it wasn't the only thing that his personal record became famous for. He was an eyewitness to the Great Fire of London and the Great Plague (of London). In the case of Pepys, who became a Member of the Parliament, it could be considered as another form of literature.

Anaïs Nin's diaries is another good case. The daughter of Spanish-Cuban parents wrote critical studies, essays, novels, and short stories, but it was her journals that would bring her posthumous fame. She recorded her bohemian existence in Paris, of how she became a lover to equally talented writers, John Steinbeck being one of them. But it was Henry Miller, author of "Tropic of Cancer" (1934) and "Tropic of Capricorn" (1939), who would change her life. The outcome was female erotica, where Nin was one of the best writers in that genre.

Then there was Anne Frank

On August 1, 1944, Frank wrote another entry in her diary. She had no idea that this would be her last. If not for the era she lived in, then her journal won't be published at all. It was a record of what took place between 1942 and 1944 during the Nazi Occupation of Holland. She was hiding, along with the rest of her family, in concealed rooms in a building near the place where Anne's father, Otto Frank, worked. The young girl wanted to be a writer, showing passion in arts and literature.

"She liked to tell stories and she liked to be the center of attention and have people around her," recalled Eva Schloss, Anne's stepsister.

Many of Anne's entries were mundane accounts, but it was her optimism that everyone would notice.

"It'

s a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more"

The above entry was dated July 15, 1944, less than a month before the rooms were discovered by the German uniformed police. No one knew who betrayed the Franks, who were arrested and subjected to hard labor. Those who survived the ordeal remembered Anne's gregarious nature, while some recounted those moments she became withdrawn and tearful. Anne didn't survive the starvation and the disease that spread through the camp, but her journal entries lived on.