Anne’s Pen-and-Inklings

‘Stories and Events from the Back House’

Anne Frank did not just keep a diary. She also wrote short stories, for which she had a special notebook. Interestingly, there are almost no cross-outs. Apparently, Anne wrote her stories in draft first and then neatly copied them into the story notebook. Four of these stories were not included in her notebook, although she did keep the drafts. In total, Anne wrote 40 stories.

‘A few weeks ago, I started writing a story, something I made up from beginning to end, and I’ve enjoyed it so much that my pen-and-inklings are piling up.’
Anne Frank, 7 August 1943

Pen-and-Inklings

Anne mentioned her stories for the first time in her diary on 7 August 1943: ‘A few weeks ago, I started writing a story, something I made up from beginning to end, and I’ve enjoyed it so much that my pen-and-inklings are piling up.’ Indeed, during those days, they did pile up. In four days, from 4 to 7 August, Anne wrote no fewer than ten stories. A few weeks later, on 2 September 1943, Anne officially inaugurated her story notebook. She titled it ‘Stories and Events from the Back House Described by Anne Frank’.

Back House

Anne began her story notebook by neatly transcribing three stories: Was There a Break-In? (24 March 1943), The Dentist (8 December 1942), and Sausage Day (10 December 1942). It was not until July 1943 that Anne started writing stories again. Initially, her focus was mainly on the daily routine in the Back House: Wenn die Uhr halb neune slägt (getting up and having breakfast), Lunch Break (the lunch break), The Back House with 8 at the Table (dinner), Freedom in the Back House (when the office workers have gone home) and The Evening and the Night at the Back House. Additionally, there were the occasionally difficult cohabitation situations in the Back House: The Best Little Table, The Fight Over the Potatoes and The Duty of the Day in the Community: Peeling Potatoes. Anne wrote the next stories about the Back House only in February 1944. She described a Sunday in the Back House and pretended to interview Peter van Pels, describing his room in great detail.

Read the story Lunch break

Looking Outside

After Anne had dealt with the topics inside the Back House, she turned her gaze outside. She described two stories as ‘seen from the Back House’: Kaatje and The Caretaker’s Family. Kaatje is about a girl Anne saw playing outside. She is the youngest daughter of a single mother and has ‘at least 6 brothers and sisters.’ Kaatje dreams of a better future. In The Caretaker’s Family, the family does not pay much attention to the war. The grandparents focus mainly on their grandchildren and the rabbits. In her diary, Anne noted that she sometimes saw the neighbourhood children in the street when she carefully looked through a gap in the curtains. From the hiding place, she sometimes peeked at the neighbours. This may well have inspired these stories.

Memories

In four of the stories, Anne looked back on her school days at the Jewish Lyceum. The first time, presumably in July 1943, she jotted down some memories titled Do You Remember? At that point, Anne had been in hiding in the Back House for almost a year to the day. At the end, Anne sighs: ‘I hope that one day those carefree school days will return.’ In early August, she continued on this topic. On 11 and 12 August, she described her first day at the Jewish Lyceum, a biology class, and a math class.

Retold

Anne labelled two of the stories ‘retold’. The first time in Boarders or Lodgers, in which Anne characterised the lodgers who lived in the Frank family’s home between 1938 and 1942, before the family went into hiding. Anne took some liberties, ‘retold according to the Merwedeplein truth.’ The second story is Paula’s Flight, a story told by her father, which Anne ‘retells’. Otto Frank had been telling stories to Anne since she was little. He continued this tradition in the Back House. Whenever the shooting over Amsterdam became too intense, Anne would run to her father. A story was always an effective way to calm Anne down.

Inventions

On 6 October 1943, Anne Frank wrote her first invention in her story notebook: Eva’s Dream. Eva dreams about meeting a Fairy and receives a wise lesson, which changes her for the better. When Eva is older, she concludes that the fairy ‘had been her own conscience’. ‘Conscience’ is a subject Anne also grappled with in her diary. ‘For those who do not know,’ Anne wrote in early July 1944, ‘must learn and experience that “a quiet conscience makes one strong!”’ Anne considered Eva’s dream her best fairy tale.

Film Star Illusion

A little story that shows how Anne changed during her time in hiding is Film Star Illusion. This story was triggered by the ‘eternal questions’ of Auguste van Pels, who lived with them in hiding, about whether Anne still wanted to become a film star. Anne’s diary reveals that she was indeed thinking about the topic in October 1942. Next to a passport photo from 1939, which she pasted in her diary, Anne wrote: ‘If I looked like this, I might still have a chance of getting to Holywood (sic).’ The story Film Star Illusion is a farewell to that dream, as the protagonist Anne Franklin (!) ultimately rejects Hollywood and is ‘forever cured of all illusions of fame.’

The Odd One Out

The odd one out in Anne’s story notebook is The Pool of Decay. It is not really a story, but - as Anne herself puts it - ‘an answer to a review’. Anne feels compelled to respond to a film review in her favourite magazine, Cinema & Theater. Every week, she received a copy from helper Victor Kugler. In the review, the author complained about the nude scenes in the sculptor’s studio. Anne found this exaggerated and advocated for a more relaxed approach to nudity: ‘a little freer, a little more ordinary, then everything would be much more casual.’ Anne as a ‘flower child’ avant la lettre.

The Fairy Godmother

In February and March 1944, Anne’s inventions dominated. A flower girl, a guardian angel, a wise gnome, and a little bear took the lead roles in Anne’s fairy tales. The last story Anne wrote was about a fairy godmother. On 12 May 1944, she copied parts of it into her story notebook, but she did not include it in the table of contents. Her diary reveals that Anne had been working on The Fairy Godmother since 6 May 1944. ‘I want to try to finish the story of the fairy godmother, Ellen. Just for fun, I can give that to Father for his birthday, along with the copyrights.’ On Tuesday, 9 May, Anne finished the story. ‘I copied it onto nice letter paper, decorated it with red ink, and stitched it together. The whole thing does look nice, but I’m not sure it’s enough.’ The version that Anne gave to her father as a gift has not survived, but a version on loose sheets of paper and a fragment still exist. Anne’s diary does not mention what her father thought of the story. It is noteworthy that Anne was aware of copyrights and was thinking about authorship.

‘The Prince of Illustrated Magazines’

On 21 April 1944, Anne was apparently thinking about ways to reach a larger audience. She wrote: ‘I want to apply to The Prince to see if they will publish a fairy tale of mine, under a pseudonym of course, but since my fairy tales are still too long, I don’t think I have much chance of success.’ The Prince was a magazine that the people in hiding read. Given all the risks, it makes sense that the request for publication was never made, no matter how much Anne may have wanted it.

Reading from Her Work

It also appears in another way that Anne was thinking about her potential readership. In her diary, she mentions a few times that she read her stories to the other people in hiding. On 17 February, for instance: ‘This morning I was upstairs, and I had promised Mrs Van Pels to read some stories. I started with Eva’s dream, which she liked very much, then I read some things from the Back House, which made her roar with laughter.’ She also read her latest invention, titled Blurry, the World Explorer, shortly after writing it. According to Anne, it was ‘very well received’ by her three listeners. However, we do not know who these listeners were.

Anne Frank, Writer

The Fairy Godmother is probably Anne’s last story. A week later, on 20 May 1944, Anne wrote: ‘Finally, after much contemplation, I have started on my “Back House.” In my head, it is as far along as it can be, but in reality, it will take a lot longer if it ever gets finished.’ Writing The Back House is Anne’s great ambition, her novel about her time in the Back House, based on her diary letters. The fact that her stories had not completely left her mind is evidenced by the inclusion of several Back House descriptions in her novel, although most readers of her diary will not have noticed it. Until her last day in the Back House, Anne was extremely serious about her dream of becoming a famous writer and journalist.

(Back House = Secret Annex)