On Sunday, Holocaust Remembrance Day, a new version of “The Diary of Anne Frank” will premiere on PBS’ “Masterpiece Classic,” and it will leave you breathless. No matter how many times you may have read that child’s redacted diaries or seen the classic (and not so classic) movie and TV versions, I can promise you that you have never understood the person behind the writing the way you will now.
Anne was just 13 when her father, Otto Frank, a spice importer in Amsterdam, built a hiding space for his family in the attic of the building that housed his business. The Nazis were crawling down the streets and arresting Jewish families, and he thought they could wait it out in hiding.
Anne began writing immediately. Much of what she actually wrote belies the sainted image we’ve come to know from her published diaries in which much of the material had been excised by the family (Otto Frank, the only family member to survive the Holocaust, died in 1980).
For this new version, writer Deborah Moggach got permission from the estate to use all the excised portions. What we’re presented with now for the first time is a spunkier, less respectful, more hormone-driven teenage Anne (played magnificently by newcomer Ellie Kendrick), the brilliant writer who never lived to grow up. But what she did write at that tender age has become the second-most-read work of non-fiction after the Bible.
We follow Anne’s first days in the attic with her beloved father (Iain Glen), mother Edith (Tamsin Greig) and older sister Margo (Felicity Jones). A few months into their confinement, a family of one of Otto’s employees — Hermann Van Daan (Ron Cook), his wife, Petronella (Lesley Sharp), and teenaged son, Peter (Geoff Breton) — sought refuge with them, as well.
Several months after that, they took in the local dentist (Nicholas Farrell). And this is where our new understanding of Anne emerges.
Not one to keep quiet or absorb insults, Anne rebelled against the nasty Van Danns — especially the disturbingly vain Petronella and her husband.
She disliked the selfish dentist with whom she had to share a room. She wrote brilliantly about them and about being confined with them.
Then, Anne hit puberty and suddenly the pathologically shy Peter began looking good to her, and she confesses to spending countless hours in the highest part of the attic with him.
Well, that is until she tired of him and broke his heart.
All of this was happening as the nightly bombing around them grew in intensity. The terror can’t even be imagined. We watch, heartbroken, as the group listens on the radio knowing that the Allies are coming and they begin to feel safe.
Then, that pounding on the attic door.