Wednesday, July 8, 1942

Dearest Kitty, So much has happened it's as if the whole world had suddenly turned upside down. But as you can see, Kitty, I'm still alive, and that's the main thing. I'm alive all right, but don't ask where or how. At three o'clock the doorbell rang. A little while later Margot appeared in the kitchen doorway looking very agitated. "Father has received a call-up notice from the SS," she whispered. "Mother has gone to see Mr. van Daan" (Mr. van Daan is Father's business partner and a good friend.) I was stunned. A call-up: everyone knows what that means. Visions of concentration camps and lonely cells raced through my head. How could we let Father go to such a fate? Suddenly the doorbell rang again. "Don't open the door!" exclaimed Margot to stop me. Every time the bell rang, either Margot or I had to tiptoe downstairs to see if it was Father, and we didn't let anyone else in. When she and I were sitting in our bedroom, Margot told me that the call-up was not for Father, but for her. At this second shock, I began to cry. But thank goodness she won't be going; Mother had said so herself. Hiding . . . where would we hide? In the city? In the country? In a house? In a shack? When, where, how . . . ? Margot and I started packing our most important belongings into a schoolbag. The first thing I stuck in was this diary, and then curlers, handkerchiefs, schoolbooks, a comb and some old letters. Preoccupied by the thought of going into hiding, I stuck the craziest things in the bag, but I'm not sorry. Memories mean more to me than dresses. Miep arrived and promised to return later that night, taking with her a bag full of shoes, dresses, jackets, underwear and stockings. After that it was quiet in our apartment; none of us felt like eating. Miep came again at eleven. Miep, who's worked for Father's company since 1933, has become a close friend. Once again, shoes, stockings, books and underwear disappeared into Miep's bag and pockets. At eleven-thirty they too disappeared. I was exhausted, and even though I knew it'd be my last night in my own bed, I fell asleep right away and didn't wake up until Mother called me at five-thirty the next morning. The four of us were wrapped in so many layers of clothes it looked as if we were going off to spend the night in a refrigerator, and all that just so we could take more clothes with us. No Jew in our situation would dare leave the house with a suitcase full of clothes. I was wearing two undershirts, three pairs of underpants, a dress, and over that a skirt, a jacket, a raincoat, two pairs of stockings, heavy shoes, a cap, a scarf and lots more. The stripped beds, the breakfast things on the table, the pound of meat for the cat in the kitchen -- all of these created the impression that we'd left in a hurry. More tomorrow. Yours, Anne