saturday, may 6, 1944

dearest kitty,

last night before dinner i tucked the letter i'd written into father's pocket. according to margot, he read it and was upset for the rest of the evening. (i was upstairs doing the dishes!) poor pim, i might have known what the effect of such an epistle would be. he's so sensitive! i immediately told peter not to ask any questions or say anything more. pim's said nothing else to me about the matter. is he going to?

everything here is more or less back to normal. we can hardly believe what jan, mr. kugler and mr. kleiman tell us about the prices and the people on the outside; half a pound of tea costs 350.00 guilders, half a pound of coffee 80.00 guilders, a pound of butter 35.00 guilders, one egg 1.45 guilders. people are paying 14.00 guilders an ounce for bulgarian tobacco! everyone's trading on the black market; every errand boy has something to offer. the delivery boy from the bakery has supplied us with darning thread-90 cents for one measly skein-the milkman can get hold of ration books, an undertaker delivers cheese. break-ins, murders and thefts are daily occurrences. even the police and night watchmen are getting in on the act. everyone wants to put food in their stomachs, and since salaries have been frozen, people have had to resort to swindling. the police have their hands full trying to track down the many girls of fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and older who are reported missing every day.

i want to try to finish my story about ellen, the fairy. just for fun, i can give it to father on his birthday, together with all the copyrights.

see you later! (actually, that's not the right phrase. in the german program broadcast from england they always close with "aufwiederhoren." so i guess i should say, "until we write again.")

yours, anne m. fran

k