wednesday, march 29, 1944

dearest kitty,

mr. bolkestein, the cabinet minister, speaking on the dutch broadcast from london, said that after the war a collection would be made of diaries and letters dealing with the war. of course, everyone pounced on my diary. just imagine how interesting it would be if i were to publish a novel about the secret annex. the title alone would make people think it was a detective story.

seriously, though, ten years after the war people would find it very amusing to read how we lived, what we ate and what we talked about as jews in hiding. although i tell you a great deal about our lives, you still know very little about us. how frightened the women are during air raids; last sunday, for instance, when 350 british planes dropped 550 tons of bombs on ijmuiden, so that the houses trembled like blades of grass in the wind. or how many epidemics are raging here.

you know nothing of these matters, and it would take me all day to describe everything down to the last detail. people have to stand in line to buy vegetables and all kinds of goods; doctors can't visit their patients, since their cars and bikes are stolen the moment they turn their backs; burglaries and thefts are so common that you ask yourself what's suddenly gotten into the dutch to make them so light-fingered. little children, eight- and eleven- year-olds, smash the windows of people's homes and steal whatever they can lay their hands on. people don't dare leave the house for even five minutes, since they're liable to come back and find all their belongings gone. every day the newspapers are filled with reward notices for the return of stolen typewriters, persian rugs, electric clocks, fabrics, etc. the electric clocks on street corners are dismantled, public phones are stripped down to the last wire.

morale among the dutch can't be good. everyone's hungry; except for the ersatz coffee, a week's food ration doesn't last two days. the invasion's long in coming, the men are being shipped off to germany, the children are sick or undernourished, everyone's wearing worn-out clothes and run-down shoes. a new sole costs 7.50 guil- ders on the black market. besides, few shoemakers will do repairs, or if they do, you have to wait four months for your shoes, which might very well have disappeared in the meantime.

one good thing has come out of this: as the food gets worse and the decrees more severe, the acts of sabo- tage against the authorities are increasing. the ration board, the police, the officials-they're all either helping their fellow citizens or denouncing them and sending them off to prison. fortunately, only a small percentage of dutch people are on the wrong side.

yours, anne