When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary

Chapter 4 serves as a transition between the Franks’ experiences of invasion and occupation. It covers only a matter of weeks from early May to Anne’s birthday in June, but each scene or introspective passage reveals the drastic change in the characters. Oma, for example, once so candid and close with Anne, cannot bring herself to speak of the horrors she knows are approaching. Instead, she clings to the kind of generic, cryptic responses adults give children in times of stress and worry: “The truth can be many things” (62); “We can never know the future” (83). Edith and Otto move from constantly discussing whether Amsterdam was a good choice to silently comprehending that it was not. Margot moves into the role of most hopeful, understanding that as the elder sister, she should distract Anne—hence the to-do list idea. Anne shows the greatest change over these weeks, becoming quieter, less effusive, more observant, less resilient. Even her happy, simple moments with friends serve as a juxtaposition for the somber nights with blacked-out windows and BBC reports. Her changed traits point to The Loss of Innocence in the Context of War and Genocide and broaden the foundation for future character development.

Transition is also apparent in the relationship between Anne and Margot. The narrative establishes in Part 1 how these dramatic foils are very different in their personalities, with the unfailingly kind and well-mannered Margot contrasting with the gifted and sometimes rebellious Anne. Now, though, Anne and Margot lean on one another emotionally: “More and more often the sisters looped their arms around each other’s waists for comfort when they were both distressed” (80). Anne feels an inherent trust in Margot that she never felt before. It hails from their common external plight—lack of freedom as Jewish people and fear of the future under Nazi oppression. Their strengthening sisterhood demonstrates the role of Family and Community as a Source of Support.

Part 3 begins in the distant, omniscient, third-person perspective common to fairy tales, with monsters lurking outside a family’s windows. Just as Anne’s interest in myths and fairy tales informs her understanding of reality, reality begins to creep into her narrative imagination as well. When monsters appear in Anne’s nightmares, they “[speak] German and they [scratch] at the window, leaving their fingerprints on the glass” (53). In Anne’s nightmares, reality blends with the world of stories, and she sees clearly the truth that her family is still trying to shield her from: that the German soldiers, like fairy-tale monsters, have come with purely malicious intent. The use of these fairy-tale images allows Anne to understand events whose causes are otherwise hidden from her.

As these chapters proceed, the narrative’s fairy-tale quality begins to lose its distancing effect. Some descriptions still evoke a fairy-tale feel, such as Anne’s consideration of the black moth: “Of course she must have imagined it, she was sure of it, such creatures didn’t exist, moths were never that big, as large as a bat, they were not waiting in the closet or beneath the bed” (102). Such reassurances offer little comfort; instead, they echo Otto’s empty assurances that the law or the international community will come to the Franks’ rescue. The moth Anne describes cannot be real, just as many people believed that the Holocaust could not be real until they saw it. An increase in bluntly stated historical facts works against the fairy tale style, forcing the reader to confront the Holocaust by relaying very real atrocities and loss of life. For example, Otto hears that Polish Jews are being beaten and murdered. Without missing a beat, the narrator expounds with historical fact: “In Poland, 3.3 million Jews were residents in 1939, and by the end of the war little more than three hundred and fifty thousand survived” (94). This shift toward somber reportage counterbalances the cushioning fairy tale language and represents the Franks’ gradual, deepening understanding that danger is closer than they thought. Employing this technique, the narrative—now without the distancing effect of fairy tale-speak—works to show from several angles why the Franks cannot just leave. For example, explaining the St. Louis’s fate shows why taking one’s chances on a ship would be unwise. Hard numbers demonstrate the insurmountable challenge facing the Franks: “Even in 1939, the waiting list to immigrate to the States contained three hundred thousand names” (109). Facts like these cumulatively reveal how the Franks’ decision to stay in Amsterdam was not really a choice at all.

With each reported historical fact, the reader must remember that Anne and Margot know little as yet about the fates of Jewish people in the Netherlands and neighboring countries, while Otto and Edith glean much more of the terrible truth from networks of friends. Consequently, these chapters deepen the dichotomy between adults and children concerning knowledge of events. Try as they might, however, to keep the worst of the news from Poland and Germany away from their children, Edith and Otto cannot help but show fear. Anne becomes more convinced that her parents are losing hope, and she sees them now not as pillars of strength and honesty but as struggling caretakers who are realizing they have inadvertently placed their family in harm’s way. Her changing view of her parents indicates growing maturity and shows The Impact of Violent Ideologies on Interpersonal Relationships.

The mood in the household shifts as a result of this onset of fear, moving from sincere, spirited hopefulness to a more brittle hope, weakened drastically by helplessness. The Franks’ inability to flee translates to a lack of autonomy over their fate; this powerlessness now robs them of the buoyant effect of optimism. They continue to mention Boston or New York to one another, but Edith’s doubts and Anne’s “small voice” when she says, “And then on to California?” (111) belie Otto’s forced positivity. This shift toward a helpless tone underscores The Loss of Innocence in the Context of War and Genocide, especially when Anne foregoes her youthful boldness and instead avoids the topic of the future altogether.