Digital researchers uncover ‘dirty jokes’ in Anne Frank’s diary
Historians find hidden passages in famous book detailing risque jokes as well as candid explanations of sex, contraception and prostitution.
Researchers using digital editing techniques have deciphered the writing on two pages of Anne Frank’s diary that she had covered over with brown masking paper, discovering four risque jokes and a candid explanation of sex, contraception and prostitution.
“Anyone who reads the passages that have now been discovered will be unable to suppress a smile,” said Frank van Vree, director of the Netherlands Institute for War Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
“The ‘dirty’ jokes are classics among growing children. They make it clear that Anne, with all her gifts, was above all also an ordinary girl.”
Anne, aged 13 at the time, wrote the two pages on September 28 1942, less than three months after she, her family and another Jewish family went into hiding from the Nazis in a secret annex behind a canal-side house in Amsterdam.
Later on, possibly fearing prying eyes or no longer liking what she had written, she covered them over with brown paper, and their content remained a tantalising mystery for decades.
It turns out the pages contained four jokes about sex that Anne herself described as “dirty” and an explanation of women’s sexual development, sex, contraception and prostitution.
“They bring us even closer to the girl and the writer Anne Frank,” Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House museum, said on Tuesday.
Experts on Anne’s diary said the newly discovered text, when studied together with the rest of her diary, reveals more about Anne’s development as a writer than it does about her interest in sex.
Mr Leopold said the words are similar to other passages dealing with sex that already have been published in the multimillion-selling diary.
However, he said it provides an early example of how Anne “creates a fictional situation that makes it easier for her to address the sensitive topics that she writes about”.
In her diary, for example, she addressed entries to a fictional friend named Kitty.
The deciphering was done by researchers from the Anne Frank museum, the Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Huygens Institute of Netherlands History.
They photographed the pages, backlit by a flash, and then used image-processing software to decipher the words, which were hard to read because they were jumbled up with the writing on the reverse sides of the pages.
In the passage on sex, Anne described how a young woman gets her period around age 14, saying that it is “a sign that she is ripe to have relations with a man but one doesn’t do that of course before one is married”.
On prostitution, she wrote: “All men, if they are normal, go with women, women like that accost them on the street and then they go together. In Paris they have big houses for that. Papa has been there.”
Anne wrote her diary while she and her family hid for more than two years during the Second World War.
The family went into hiding in July 1942 and remained there, provided with food and other essentials by a close-knit group of helpers, until August 4 1944, when they were discovered and ultimately deported to Auschwitz.
Only Anne’s father, Otto Frank, survived the war. Anne and her sister died in Bergen-Belsen camp. Anne was 15.
After the war, Otto Frank had his daughter’s diary published, and it went on to become a symbol of hope and resilience that has been translated into dozens of languages.
The house where the Franks hid was turned into a museum that is one of Amsterdam’s most popular tourist attractions.
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
