The Diary of Anne Frank, Act Two, continued
SCENE 5
It is again the afternoon in November 1945. The rooms are as we saw them in the first scene. MR. KRALER
has joined MIEP and MR. FRANK. There are coffee cups on the table. We see a great change in
MR. FRANK. He is calm now. His bitterness is gone. He slowly turns a few pages of the diary. They are blank.
Mr. Frank. No more. (He closes the diary and puts it down on the couch beside
him.)
Miep. I’d gone to the country to find food. When I got back, the block was surrounded by
police . . .
Mr. Kraler. We made it our business to learn how they knew. It was the thief . . . the thief who told them.
[MIEP goes up to the gas burner, bringing back a pot of coffee.]
Mr. Frank (after a pause). It seems strange to say this, that anyone could be happy in a concentration camp. But Anne was happy in the camp in Holland where they first took us. After two years of being shut up in these rooms, she could be out . . . out in the sunshine and the fresh air that she loved.
Miep (offering the coffee to MR. FRANK). A little more?
Mr. Frank (holding out his cup to her). The news of the war was good. The British and Americans were sweeping through France. We felt sure that they would get to us in time. In September we were told that we were to be shipped to Poland. . . . The men to one camp. The women to another. I was sent to Auschwitz. They went to Belsen. In January we were freed, the few of us who were left. The war wasn’t yet over, so it took us a long time to get home. We’d be sent here and there behind the lines where we’d be safe. Each time our train would stop . . . at a siding or a crossing . . . we’d all get out and go from group to group . . . Where were you? Were you at Belsen? At Buchenwald? At Mauthausen? Is it possible that you knew my wife? Did you ever see my husband? My son? My daughter? That’s how I found out about my wife’s death . . . of Margot, the Van Daans . . . Dussel. But Anne . . . I still hoped . . . Yesterday I went to Rotterdam. I’d heard of a woman there . . . She’d been in Belsen with Anne . . . I know now.
[He picks up the diary again and turns the pages back to find a certain passage. As he finds it, we hear ANNE’s voice.]
Anne’s Voice. In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.
[MR. FRANK slowly closes the diary.]
Mr. Frank. She puts me to shame.
[They are silent.]
Curtain
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