When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary

by Alice Hoffman

How wonderful it is that no one has to wait even a minute to start gradually changing the world… —Anne Frank

When you write it down, they cannot pretend it never happened.

Dreams are the beginning, he always told Anne. They’re the stories we tell ourselves.

she knew what it was like to feel alone, even when your house was filled with people.

All you needed to believe in yourself was to know that someone loved you, the real you, the you deep inside.

He knew what happened when you did as you were told; you often lost the best part of yourself.

Being pretty wasn’t everything, but feeling that you were worth something was.

You have to put your faith in what is good.”

Hatred arises so quickly that one drop is all it takes before it spreads like ink on a page.

when some people are less than others, and only a select few have rights, anyone who doesn’t belong can never be safe.

Oma seemed to have the ability to sense what the future would be, not because she was a fortune teller, but because she had experienced the past. If you have been to a place once, you know it is possible to go there again. Time is a circle, and what happens in one country can begin in another. Terror can grow beyond borders, a forest of black trees with thorns on every branch. What happened in Germany had begun as a tiny seed of hatred, the smallest blister, a few evil men. How could Oma tell her beloved granddaughter what could happen when that seed bloomed? How could she reveal to her sweet child that evil was everywhere, in the hearts of your neighbors, and the postman, and your friends next door? Hatred was contagious, it spread from one household to the next, a slow infection of the spirit and the soul.

What happened once can happen again, even if you lock your doors, even if you’re honest and fair and have obeyed all the rules. Rules change, they’re broken so easily it seemed they’d been made of paper or thread.

Oma had once told Anne. You cannot expect the Nazis to act like normal people. Evil people tell themselves a story they come to believe. They tell themselves they are good, and everyone else is inhuman. They tell themselves they are doing what heaven would will them to do.

The last moment of anything is one you never forget.

Love is everything, love is everywhere, it’s the one thing they can never take away from you.