A Gift of Pages and the Burden of Illness
On December 22, 1943, Anne Frank addressed her imaginary friend, Kitty, with a mix of excitement and apology. The most immediately uplifting news was that her father, Otto, had “tracked down another new diary for me.” She noted its “respectable thickness,” a detail that speaks volumes about her relief and renewed purpose. In the confined world of the Secret Annex, a new, empty book of pages was not just a gift, but a promise of future work and a continuing testament to her life.
However, the reason for her long silence was a bleak reminder of their precarious existence: she had been ill, confined to bed for several days. She admitted to making her cold worse by trying to get up too soon.
This entry provides a stark contrast that defined life in hiding. The joy over a new diary—a symbol of the internal life, ambition, and hope—is immediately followed by the mundane, frustrating reality of the physical body breaking down under stress, lack of sunlight, and fear. Even a simple cold became a significant event, a drain on her energy and a forced break from her passion. Despite the lingering illness, Anne concludes with a hopeful note: “Now I am a little bit better, but it isn’t all over yet,” a phrase that could describe her sickness as much as the war itself.