Anne Frank's 'dirty jokes' in her diary uncovered by researchers...

Τα «βρώμικα αστεία» της Anne Frank στο ημερολόγιό της, 
που αποκαλύφθηκαν από τους ερευνητές
Dutch researchers uncover dirty jokes hidden in Anne Frank’s diary

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Researchers using digital technology 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, age 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.

*Teresien da Silva, left, and Ronald Leopold of the Anne Frank Foundation show 
a facsimile of Anne Frank's diary with two pages taped off during a press conference at 
the foundation's office in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Tuesday, 
May 15, 2018. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

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 tantalizing mystery for decades.

*A video shows how two taped off pages from Anne Frank’s diary being photographed 
to reveal her writing during a press conference at The Anne Frank Foundation’s office 
in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Tuesday, May 15, 2018. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

-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 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.

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.

*A video shows the text underneath two taped off pages from Anne Frank’s diary 
during a press conference at The Anne Frank Foundation’s office in Amsterdam, 
Netherlands, Tuesday, May 15, 2018. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

-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 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 World War II. 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 Aug. 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.

*REPLACEMENT BY https://www.timesofisrael.com/dutch-researchers-uncover-dirty-jokes-hi
...and other sources of information
- https://www.sbs.com.au/news/dirty-jokes-in-anne-frank-s-diary-uncovered-by-researchers
- http://www.thejournal.ie/anne-frank-dirty-jokes-4015326-May2018/
- http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44133453
- https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/anne-frank-diary-pages-uncovered_us_5afc22c0e4b0a59b4dff4e1a


Anne hid in the secret annex with her family for more than two years before they were discovered in 1944. She died at a concentration camp just before her 16th birthday.


ANNE FRANK HOUSE

Researchers uncovered a never-before-seen entry by Anne Frank beneath these pages of brown paper. It’s dated September 28, 1942.

BAS CZERWINSKI VIA GETTY IMAGES

Ronald Leopold (left), executive director of the Anne Frank House, presents two unknown pages of Anne Frank’s diary, during a press conference on Tuesday in Amsterdam.