I must work, so as not to be a fool, to get on, to become a journalist, because that’s what I want!... I can’t imagine that I would have to lead the same sort of life as Mummy ... and all the women who do their work and are then forgotten. I must have something besides a husband and children, something that I can devote myself to!
ATTRIBUTION:
Anne Frank (1929–1945), Dutch Jewish diarist; born in Germany. Diary of a Young Girl, entry dated April 4, 1944 (1947).
Frank and her family were in hiding in Holland when she wrote this. Exactly four months later, their hiding place would be raided by the police, and they would be sent to German and Dutch concentration camps. All of them except Otto Frank, the father, would perish; Anne died in Bergen-Belsen, a German camp, just two months before the liberation of Holland.
