The Diary of Anne Frank | The Life and Death of a Document: Lessons from the Strange Career of The Diary of Anne Frank
In the following essay, Max Page calls The Diary of Anne Frank a ‘‘radically altered, shortened, and skewed document,’’ and explores how and why it has been altered in stage and written versions of the work.
‘‘In spite of everything, I still believe that people are truly good at heart.’’ —Anne Frank [1944]
These lines, written by fifteen-year-old Anne Frank in her ‘‘secret annex’’ in Amsterdam, have become some of the most famous lines uttered from the Holocaust era. They anchor the only version of The Diary of Anne Frank known for forty years, the Broadway play of 1955, the 1959 Hollywood movie, as well as more commonplace interpretations such as the Cliffs Notes version read by countless high school and college...
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