Saturday, June 20, 1942
Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I’ve never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings2 of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. I feel like writing, and I have an even greater need to get all kinds of things off my chest.
“Paper has more patience than people.” I thought of this saying on one of those days when I was feeling a little depressed and was sitting at home with my chin in my hands, bored, wondering whether to stay in or go out. I finally stayed where I was, brooding3. Yes, paper does have more patience, and since I’m not planning to let anyone else read this stiff-backed notebook grandly referred to as a “diary,” unless I should ever find a real friend.
Now I’m back to the point that prompted4 me to keep a diary in the first place: I don’t have a friend.
Let me put it more clearly, since no one will believe that a thirteen-year-old girl is completely alone in the world. And I’m not. I have loving parents and a sixteen-year-old sister, and there are about thirty people I can call friends. I have a throng of admirers who can’t keep their adoring eyes off me and who sometimes have to resort to using a pocket mirror to try and catch a glimpse of me in the classroom. I have a family, loving aunts, uncles and a good home. No, on the surface I seem to have everything, except my one true friend. All I think about when I’m with friends is having a good time. I can’t bring myself to talk about anything but ordinary everyday things. We don’t seem to be able to get any closer, and that’s the problem. Maybe it’s my fault that we don’t confide in each other. In any case, that’s just how things are, and unfortunately they’re not liable to change. This is why I’ve started the diary.
To enhance the image of this long-awaited friend in my imagination, I don’t want to jot5 down the facts in this diary the way most people would do, but I want the diary to be my friend, and I’m going to call this friend Kitty.
Since no one would understand a word of my stories to Kitty if I were to plunge6 right in, I’d better provide a brief sketch7 of my life, much as I dislike doing so.
My father, the most adorable father I’ve ever seen, didn’t marry my mother until he was thirty-six and she was twenty-five. My sister Margot was born in Frankfurt in Germany in 1926. I was born on June 12, 1929. I lived in Frankfurt until I was four. Because we’re Jewish, we immigrated to Holland in 1933, when my father became the Managing Director of the Dutch Opekta Company.
Our lives were not without anxiety, since our relatives in Germany were suffering under Hitler’s anti-Jewish laws. After the pogroms8 in 1938 my two uncles (my mother’s brothers) fled Germany, finding safe refuge in North America. My elderly grandmother came to live with us. She was seventy-three years old at the time.
After May 1940 the good times were few and far between: first there was the war, then the capitulation9 and then the arrival of the Germans, which is when the trouble started for the Jews. Our freedom was severely10 restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees11: Jews were required to wear a yellow star; Jews were required to turn in their bicycles; Jews were forbidden to use street-cars; Jews were forbidden to ride in cars, even their own; Jews were required to do their shopping between 3 and 5 P.M.; Jews were required to visit only Jewish-owned shops; Jews were forbidden to attend theaters, movies or any other forms of entertainment; Jews were forbidden to use swimming pools, tennis courts or any other athletic fields; Jews were forbidden to take part in any athletic activity in public; Jews were forbidden to sit in their gardens after 8 P.M.; Jews were required to attend Jewish schools, etc. You couldn’t do this and you couldn’t do that, but life went on. Jacque, my classmate, always said to me,“I don’t dare do anything anymore, cause I’m afraid it’s not allowed.”
Grandma died in January 1942. No one knows how often I think of her and still love her. The four of us are still doing well.
1942年6月20日
星期六
像我这样的人写日记是有点奇怪。不只是我以前没写过；在我看来，不光我、换了随便哪个人，将来都不会对一个13岁小女生敞开的心扉感兴趣。不过那又怎样呢？我就是想写，我就是想把埋在心底的那么多东西统统吐出来。
俗话说“纸比人更有耐心”；我是在一天有点沮丧的时候想起这句话的。我当时手托着下巴呆坐着，觉得无聊极了，不知道到底该出去还是该在家待着。最后还是待在那儿沉思。没错，纸一定是最有耐心的，再说我也不打算把这本硬皮笔记本拿给人看，它可是有了骄傲的名字，叫“日记”啊。谁也不给看，除非我找到一个真正的朋友。
现在我总算彻底想清楚了，我开始写日记的原因是：我还没一个真正的朋友。
让我再讲清楚一点，因为没有人会相信一个13岁的女孩会觉得在世上很孤单。事实并非如此。我有亲爱的父母和一个16岁的姐姐，我认识大概30个可以称作朋友的人。我有一大帮追求者，用仰慕的眼神盯着我；很想让我看他们一眼，可我不搭理，有时他们只好在班上用藏在兜里的小镜子偷看我。我有好多亲戚，慈爱的阿姨、姑妈，叔叔、舅舅，一个幸福的家庭。看上去似乎我什么都不缺，除了一个真正的朋友。我跟朋友们在一起无非打打闹闹。我从来没让自己说过任何离谱的事，大家似乎就没办法走得更近一些，这才是问题所在。也许是我的错，让我们无法彼此倾心。可无论怎样，事实如此，根深蒂固，看上去无法改变。所以，我才开始写日记。
我要用我的想象力增添这位期待已久的朋友的魅力。我不想像大多数人那样流水帐似的在日记里草草记下琐事，我想让这本日记成为我的朋友，我要叫这个朋友凯蒂。
一旦我一头扎进去写起来，谁也不知道我到底在对凯蒂说什么。所以，虽然很不情愿，我还是先简述下我的生活。
我最最亲爱的爸爸娶我妈妈的时候已经36岁，妈妈25岁。姐姐玛格特1926年出生于德国的法兰克福。接着我在1929年6月12日出生。4岁前我住在法兰克福。因为是犹太人，我们1933年移居到荷兰，爸爸被任命为荷兰欧派克塔公司的总经理。
我们的生活并非无忧无虑。德国那边的亲戚全都因为希特勒的反犹太法遭了殃。1938年大屠杀后，我的两个舅舅逃离德国，在北美找到了安全避难所。年迈的祖母来到我们身边，当时她73岁。
1940年5月过后，幸福的时光一下子溜走了：先是打仗，然后投降协定，接着德国人来了，犹太人的苦难由此开始。各种反犹太法令严格限制了我们的人身自由：犹太人必须佩戴黄色的大星星；犹太人必须上缴自行车；犹太人禁止乘电车；犹太人不准开车，自己的车也不行；犹太人只能在下午3点到5点之间去商店买东西，而且只能去犹太人的商店；犹太人禁止去剧院、电影院和其他娱乐场所；犹太人不得使用游泳池、网球场等运动场地；犹太人不得参加任何公共体育活动；犹太人到了晚上8点必须进屋，过了这个点就连在自己的花园都不能待；犹太人必须去犹太学校上学。还有无数类似的规定。你这也不能做，那也不能做，可生活照样继续。我的同班同学雅克老对我说：“我什么都不敢做，搞不好哪件事就是禁止的。”
1942年1月祖母去世了。大家永远不会知道我有多么想念她，我还是那么深爱她。到目前为止我们一家四口一切平安。
1. 安妮·弗兰克，1929年生于德国，犹太人。二战中安妮一家流亡到荷兰，为躲避纳粹迫害，全家躲进父亲公司大楼的几间密室里，生活了两年多。1944年8月，纳粹抓走藏在密室里的8个犹太人。几个月后，安妮因风寒死在集中营。战后，只有安妮父亲一人生还。他整理、出版了安妮的日记，引起举世震动。
2. musing n. 沉思
3. brood v. 沉思
4. prompt v. 促使
5. jot v. 草草记下
6. plunge v. 投入，此指开始记日记
7. sketch n. 草图；简介
8. pogrom n. 大屠杀
9. capitulation n. 投降
10. severely adv. 严格地
11. decree n. 法令