Photos of Anne Frank taken at a photo booth.

It is very difficult to find someone who has never heard of this book, given its historical importance. Not because it shows us statistics and facts we’ve never heard of, but because it presents the perspective of a teenage girl that had to change her whole life to try to survive.

Photography: @littleliterature_ (via Instagram)

We enter Anne’s life on June 12, 1942, when she is 13 years old and lives in Amsterdam. We are in the middle of World War II, and the Nazi persecution in this country happens more and more frequently. For more than two years, we follow Anne’s thoughts, while she hides in an attic, with her entire family.

As incredible as it may seem to us, and perhaps contrary to what we would initially assume, the girl’s thoughts go beyond the situation she is facing. Anne Frank kept worrying about the family’s discussions, the typical crushes of her teenage, the need to be recognized as a grown woman. This is one of the biggest surprises in this book, Anne’s ability to write in such an introspective way about everyday situations, about herself, about her family, and about the world, even though she knew that, outside, everything was chaos.

“The Diary of Anne Frank” is the story of a girl to whom is not given the opportunity to live a “normal” adolescence: to go to school, to have conversations with her friends, to be completely relaxed and having dinner with her family. Anne Frank should never have had her life struck by uncertainty, by war, and by evil. Her life should have never been so short.

A mandatory book to remind us of the past, so that it is never repeated in the future. “The Diary of Anne Frank” is our new suggestion on the Josefinas’ Book Club.

If you have already read this book, share your thoughts with us, using #JosefinasBookClub on Instagram. Good readings!