The Joy of Figure Skates
In a letter to her relatives in Switzerland on January 13, 1941, Anne Frank beautifully captured the simple, all-consuming joy of a winter pastime: ice skating. She confessed that she spent “Every spare minute I am at the ice-rink,” a testament to her energetic and enthusiastic nature.
Her excitement in the letter was largely focused on a new, hard-won possession: figure skates. Anne had been using her sister Margot’s old skates, which had to be “fixed on with a key.” All her friends, however, had the much-desired modern figure-skates. After a “long wait,” she finally got them.
With her new skates, Anne threw herself into the sport, taking “regular lessons” and mastering every skill: “waltzing, jumping, in fact everything, to do with ice-skating.”
A Memory of Winter
The photograph you provided, the only surviving skating photo of Anne and Margot, captures this brief, happy period of freedom.
Tragically, this joy was short-lived. The letter, full of life and movement, is shadowed by a devastating final fact: “In the winter of 1941-42 Anne and Margot are no longer allowed to go skating.” The sudden restriction was part of the systematic stripping away of Jewish rights, turning a simple, cherished winter activity into yet another freedom lost to the Nazi regime. Anne’s intense joy in her new skates was a final, fleeting taste of the normal, active life that was about to disappear forever.