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.

There was a huge chestnut tree in the courtyard, and some people believed if you touched the bark of the tree your wish would be granted, but only if you closed your eyes, and only if you really believed. Anne was a believer, one who loved fairy tales and myths. She was certain girls could forge paths for themselves, no matter how dark and deep the forests might be.

“Good people cannot understand evil. They don’t even recognize it,”

Her grandmother leaned down and stroked Anne’s hair. She had always had a special fondness for her younger granddaughter. Although some people felt Anne was too full of herself, Oma knew she was deeply sensitive, possessing a huge compassionate heart that was easily wounded, not that Anne showed her hurt to anyone, especially not to her mother, whom she often felt she could never please. Sometimes, when Anne was in her mother’s presence, she would retreat into a world of her own. “Wake up,” Edith would say then. “We’re not here to dream.” I am, Anne would whisper under her breath. I can dream whatever I want to. It was true Anne often forgot her chores, and everyday life didn’t always interest her. Her imagination ran wild as she read novels in the fading light in the bedroom that she shared with Margot, so engrossed that the rest of the world slipped away. Her mother would knock on the door late at night, calling for Anne to turn out the light. But even after she’d done as she was told, Anne often couldn’t sleep; she would look out her window to gaze at the stars, which seemed so close she sometimes felt as if she could reach out and touch them.

“Dream of rabbits,” she advised her grandmother that night. “I’d rather dream about you,” Oma told her. She agreed to go back to bed if Anne did the same. “Let’s dream about the future,” Anne suggested. “Fine,” her Oma agreed. She felt better just talking to Anne. How lucky she was to have a granddaughter who had hope. “Let’s do that.” “We’ll be in California,” Anne said. “In a big house by the sea.” “Will we?” Oma laughed, delighted.

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

Pim influenced her greatly, especially when it came to reading, which he always said was never a waste of time.

As far back as 1939, Eleanor Roosevelt had tried to persuade the government to pass a bill that would have allowed twenty thousand German Jewish refugee children to enter the States, but the bill was ignored and never voted on, and the children had not been allowed into the country. Later, most were taken to death camps and murdered. In the Nazi regime, age meant nothing, humanity meant nothing, love meant nothing.

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

Perhaps this was why Anne admired them so. Magpies took what they wanted and did as they pleased.

That was the thing about being someone’s sister. You could hate her and love her at the very same time. You could tell her things you wouldn’t tell anyone else or tell her nothing at all. You could have a fight and say horrible things, and then forget all about it. You could outrun her when she least expected you to do so, just take off and know she would follow.

She might not show her feelings as a mother, but she had them all the same. She felt too much, and if she ever lost one of her daughters she would cry until the world was flooded. She would weep until the fields turned to ice. She would travel underground if need be, to the underworld, that dark place from which few managed to return.

Good people often could not understand why the oldest stories were filled with demons and dangerous beasts. They had no idea that when evil appears, you cannot fight it with arrows or stones. It is invisible and it is everywhere. The first sign is the scent of something burning, as if a fire had been set and the air was filling with black acrid smoke. It’s best to run into the woods when this happens, even if there are wolves sleeping beneath the trees. You know what a wolf is the minute you see it, but an evil person can be hidden from sight. He’s often in disguise. He can look like your neighbor, or a woman in a shop where you buy groceries, or like the person you thought was your friend.

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.

In time, the underground resistance would hide twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand Jews.

“I made a to-do list,” Margot said. “You made a wish list.” “You don’t have wishes?” It took a while before Margot spoke. “I’m afraid to.” “I’m not,” Anne said.

“Once upon a time,” Anne said, “there were two sisters. One was beautiful and one was not.” Margot laughed. “No, that’s not the way the story goes.” “How does it go?” Their voices were soft so that no one else could hear them. “Once upon a time, there were two sisters who would do anything for each other,” Margot began. “What would they do?” Anne’s voice was softer than usual. She didn’t feel very grown up now. “They would protect each other and they would always believe in each other.” “No matter what?” Anne asked. “No matter what,” Margot told her. “Then that’s what I wish,” Anne said. “You don’t have to wish.” Margot’s eyes were closed now too. “It’s already true.” When her sister had fallen asleep, Anne crept from her bed to look out into the darkness in the courtyard. She wanted to believe they could protect each other, but they were living in wolf time, a time of shadows. Most people told themselves that all would be well, but if they stayed up late, if they really thought about it, they would know that no matter who loved you, no matter who tried to protect you, nothing was fine and nothing was the same, and by the end of May, all the rabbits were gone.

It was true; more boys had begun to gather around Anne in the schoolyard, not because she was beautiful, but because she shimmered, like a firefly. She was so alive they were drawn to her, and they didn’t even know why. She was electric, so much more intense than most people.

The only birds that appeared to have stayed on were the magpies, since their kind never migrated far from home. Margot pointed upward to the branches above them. “Isn’t that the bird who follows you?” Anne thought Margot was humoring her, but when she looked up, she saw that her sister was right. It was the same bird in the tree above them, the one who recognized her and followed her home from school. Anne stood up and waved him away. She wanted him to flee to Spain or Morocco and forget all about Amsterdam. She wanted him to be somewhere safe where the bombs didn’t shake the stars in the sky. “Go on,” she called out. “Fly away now!” When the magpie soared off above the elm trees, both sisters applauded, even though they knew they should be quiet so as not to call attention to themselves. They were so very different, but they were sisters all the same. You can love someone who doesn’t understand you. That’s what Anne had decided. You can trust them more than anyone else.

She sat under the clear blue sky, and there was the magpie who had followed her home. “Fly away,” she told the bird when he landed on the rooftop, but he stayed where he was, he didn’t fly away to Morocco or to Spain, and so they stayed there together, for the truth was, there was really nowhere else to go.

They thought they were shivering in the cold, but that wasn’t it at all. Fear has a way of staying with you, even when you tell yourself you’re safe.

In Poland, 3.3 million Jews were residents in 1939, and by the end of the war little more than three hundred and fifty thousand survived.

Oma went to bed right after dinner. She was cold all the time now and she wore a sweater and two shawls. On some nights she didn’t speak at all. “Pay no attention to me,” Oma said whenever she was asked if something was wrong. The truth was, everything was so wrong she didn’t know where to begin. She knew she was ill, the signs were all there, her labored breathing, the pain in her side, but she didn’t wish to upset anyone. What good would it do to complain? “Enjoy your games,” she told the family when they asked her if she’d like to join in. “Old ladies go to bed early.” But it was something more, and Anne knew it. She brewed the last of the blue tea and brought Oma a cup. Oma would no longer talk about the future when Anne asked her opinion. “Do you think I know what will come?” Oma said. “Anne, I know nothing, and I can change nothing. If I could, I would have made certain I was born in another time and place. I’d take you with me, into the future. I’d take us all far from here.” If you looked into her eyes, it seemed that Oma knew more than she was letting on, but she would not say another word. She was folded in on herself, rarely leaving her bed. Before Anne put the deck of cards away, she drew two cards for luck. She would tell her own fortune if no one else could. She wanted a queen or an ace, which seemed like lucky cards, but instead she drew a ten and a three. She kept those cards under her pillow. Anne had not been raised as a religious Jew; she came from a mod...

After all the information was written down, the authorities knew where to find the Jews, they knew how many children were in a family and what their ages were, they knew if there were old people, worthless in a work camp, they knew who lived in the nicer neighborhoods and were likely to have good silverware and jewelry. It was all written down now and kept on file, and that file was locked with a key that might as well have been made of bones. Jews were considered to be something rather than someone.

One cannot know the future, and it was impossible then to suspect that the Netherlands would have the greatest percentage of Jews murdered of any western European country by the end of the war.

As a reprisal, more than four hundred Jewish men had randomly been arrested, then deported to Mauthausen, a concentration camp so inhumane only two of those taken into custody on that day survived. “This is madness,” Edith said when she heard about the arrests. “You’re an honest man. There’s no reason to arrest you,” she told her husband. Anne and Margot linked hands, but they didn’t look at each other. “Girls, do not worry,” Pim said in a soft voice. “Your mother is right. We’ll be fine.” All the same, that night the girls slept in the same bed knowing that there were Jewish children all over the city who had lost their fathers and brothers.

Her dear father, who was always so kindhearted and generous, who believed in the best in people, now couldn’t look at his own daughter for fear she’d see the truth in his eyes. She saw it anyway. Nothing was certain. “We can hope,” Pim said. No one could argue with that. Hope was all they had now.

He was quiet in the evenings, and when he came home from work, he seemed exhausted. Anne noticed that her parents no longer quarreled. But one night, when Anne crept downstairs, she saw that her mother and father were both in the kitchen, drinking tea and not speaking a word to each other. They were two ghosts in the same room; they were people who no longer had anything to say to each other. That was when Anne realized that there were times when silence was worse than an argument.

and unless Anne was mistaken, her mother was crying in the dark. Anne went in and sat beside her, and still Edith said nothing. Anne thought she would ignore her, but then her mother reached for her hand and they sat there together, holding on as best they could.

There were pearl buttons and lace sewn to the hem. The dress was so pretty even her mother approved. They walked home with Anne carrying it carefully, for it was a treasure and a privilege to have something so beautiful. “Don’t ruin it,” Edith said. “The fabric easily stains.” Anne remembered what her sister had told her. Their mother worried over them. “Thank you for this,” she said. “I’ll never forget this dress.” Edith looked at her daughter. Anne shone with happiness. She deserved this dress and more. She deserved everything. Edith did her best not to cry. “I’ll never forget it either,” she said.

“I want to bring life into the world,” Margot said. “One for every life they’ve taken away from us.” The Nazis wanted to rid the world of their people, and Margot wanted the opposite. Bringing new life into the world would be a daily miracle. “You want to make something out of nothing,” Anne said. That was the way she felt when she invented her own stories. Now it was Margot’s turn to be surprised. “Exactly.”

Who wouldn’t want a mother who would do anything to bring you back from the underworld? Who would make any bargain and turn the world into dark, cold winter until you were returned to her, even if it was for only half the year? A mother who didn’t look at you as if you were a disappointment and quietly give up on you because you thought you were something you weren’t, because you just weren’t special enough for her to see who you were?

On her way home from school alone on a cold afternoon, Anne wondered if authors wrote for the same reason she had always read, to escape into another world. As she walked along the river, she began to imagine a story about a grandmother who watched over her granddaughter as if she were a guardian angel. The girl grew up to have a happy life, for even though there was sorrow in the world, her grandmother’s love was so strong she could feel it even when her grandmother departed from this world. Anne stopped beside the frozen river, but in her mind, she was inside her story. She was in a garden that was more beautiful than any she’d seen before, with twelve rosebushes, six that were red and six that were white. She imagined that she heard her grandmother’s voice. “Come see what has bloomed! Mind the bees!” Without thinking, Anne started to walk onto the ice as if she were entering the garden inside her mind. “You there!” a German soldier called to her. “What do you think you’re doing?” Anne felt her heart racing. She wasn’t inside her story anymore. She didn’t know what to do, so she looked down as the soldier approached. She was shaking; she knew she should have paid more attention to what she was doing, but there she was, on the edge of the ice. One more step and she would be breaking the law. He knew who she was, perhaps because of how frightened she looked, or maybe it was her dark glossy hair and her large expressive features, or maybe he merely guessed. “Jews cannot ska...

Perhaps Anne was punishing herself when she sat down on the cold floor. She felt responsible for not being at home on the night when her grandmother had left this world. But when she thought about their last conversation, she wondered if her Oma had told her to go spend the night with her friend in order to protect her from seeing death there in their own dining room. Life is for the living, she had told Anne, and then she had kissed her goodbye. It had felt like a true goodbye and Anne had stopped for a moment before she left the room. Maybe I’ll stay, she had said, but her grandmother had waved her toward the door. Go and don’t feel guilty, her grandmother had called. Oma had reminded Anne that she was alive and young and needed to have faith in the world around her. She reminded her that no matter what happened, no matter how difficult life became, Anne would always know she had been loved.

When Anne was done with dinner, Edith took the bowl and rinsed it at the sink. Anne rose to go, but her mother said, “Wait.” Now she will tell me more of what I’ve done wrong, Anne thought, for she always expected her mother to be critical, but instead, Edith reached under the sink and took out a small tin box. Inside were the earrings and gold necklace Oma had given her on her eighteenth birthday that Anne had seen her hiding soon after the bombs had fallen. Edith held out the necklace. “For you,” she said. Anne took a step back. There was something wrong in this. She was too young for such a special gift. She was the little sister, the one who never pleased her mother, the one who wasn’t so special after all. “You don’t have to give it to me,” she stammered. “Of course I don’t have to,” her mother told her. “I want to.” “I can’t wear it anyway.” She’d heard that Germans tore the jewelry off Jewish women in the street, grabbing the rings from their fingers. “You don’t have to wear it outside, you can keep it where it is, and you’ll know it’s yours,” Edith said. “Even if it’s hidden.” Anne lifted her eyes to her mother’s. It was then that she saw something she’d never expected. She saw that her mother would do anything for her, that she would search the world over for her if Anne fell into the underworld; she would make the trees turn brown and shake them with all her might until they lost their leaves, she would scour the whole world until she found her daughter. They did...

Margot turned sixteen on February 16. It was a Monday, and Edith and Otto had decided to celebrate despite the darkening mood in the city and the despair they all felt. Margot’s gift was a book she had wanted, Camera Obscura; there were cards, and Otto wrote the traditional birthday poem, which he recited after cake was served. They all applauded, and the candles were blown out quickly so that they would not be wasted. “How does it feel to be sixteen?” Anne asked her sister. Margot laughed. “I feel exactly the same as I did yesterday. I’ve always been the same.” Anne felt herself flush with resentment because it was true. Her sister had been a perfect baby and a perfect child and now was on the verge of becoming a perfect woman. Then Margot surprised her when she suddenly turned away, distraught. “This may be as old as I ever get to be,” Margot said. She went into the small toilet room, then she locked the door. “Margot,” Anne whispered. “Go away,” Margot responded. She didn’t even sound like herself. She sounded like someone who was afraid of the future. No matter how good she was, no matter how perfect, she couldn’t set things right.

“I’ve been thinking over your offer,” Anne said. Edith turned from the sink to look at Anne, puzzled. “What offer?” Anne looked straight ahead. She didn’t want to give her emotions away. “Our secret. The necklace.” Edith let the dishes be and stood with her back against the sink. Her younger girl was always a puzzle. “Have you?” “I think it’s more suited for Margot. And I don’t think you should wait until she’s eighteen.” Edith thought of all the times she had been annoyed with Anne for not being serious enough. She now understood that all those times had meant nothing, and this moment meant everything. Oma had always told Edith to look inside her daughter, but Edith had been too busy with daily life and with the threats all around them. Now she looked and she saw who her daughter was. “Are you sure?” she asked Anne. Anne nodded. “Extremely sure. I think you should give it to her now.” Eighteen was a year that might never come. “Why wait,” Edith agreed. That night Anne pretended to be asleep when their mother came into their room. The moon was still bright and the light outside seemed made of silver. Margot sat up in bed when she realized that Edith was there. “Is everything all right?” she whispered to their mother. Edith reached for her older daughter and placed her necklace in the palm of her hand. “A special gift,” she said. “It belonged to Oma, and then to me. Now it’s yours.” Margot threw her arms around her mother. Her face was beaming. “It’s so beautiful.” She had ...

“Tell me a story,” Margot said. Anne laughed. Margot was always the one who could fall asleep easily, but now she was the one who wished for a story. “Really,” Margot said. They looked at each other through the dark. “You’re so good at it.” Anne nodded. “Once upon a time,” she began. But how could she tell her sister the tragic Greek myths she loved best, the one about the girl who was kidnapped and taken down to the underworld, or the one about the girl who was turned into a spider, or the girl who had opened the jar that had allowed evil into the world? In myths, humans were bent and broken by fate and by the gods. Sometimes they lived and sometimes they died and the world still went on, with or without them. “Go on,” Margot said. Her voice was unexpectedly soft. She thought she had seen a black moth fluttering out in the hall, trying to get underneath their door, and the sight had shaken her. Maybe it was only her imagination, or maybe it was more. Maybe she was beginning to see what was out there. “Tell me a story.” Anne leaned in closer so that their foreheads were touching. “Once upon a time, there were two sisters who were so brave, even the wolves in the woods ran away from them.” “The wolves were afraid of them?” Margot said in disbelief. “Impossible.” “The sisters outsmarted them.”

A story could do many things; it could make you see the beauty in the world, it could give you hope when there was none, but in the end a story was only a story. It was not a black moth Anne had been seeing in the corners. It was evil. It was already in their room. The sisters had imagined how they might escape into the forest to a place so deep in the woods they would never be found. They had no idea that at the end of January, the Final Solution had been drawn up at a secret meeting in a suburb of Berlin, where high Nazi officials planned the killing of the eleven million Jews of Europe and beyond, a genocide of such enormous proportions it would destroy an entire race. Anne and Margot had heard the moths at the window, but they still had faith in the future. They still held hands when they said good night. Sleep well, they said, sleep until the morning light, until the future arrives, until we are anywhere but here.

Dogs were allowed to sit on park benches, but we were not.

The star that had been sewn onto her coat burned through her as if the fabric had been spun from pure hatred. Every stitch pierced through her as if it were a thorn. At night, she looked up at the sky and saw that there were still millions of stars right above her, all burning bright, but people on the street didn’t notice them. They only saw the one that had fallen. The one sewn to her coat with black thread. The star that she wore was the only one that mattered now.

There were more and more rats all the time. Anne and her mother and sister pretended not to see them when they went shopping. You had to pretend some things in order to remain human, you had to try your best to be the person you were before this all began. They imagined the rats were only shadows in the corners. They told themselves this was the market they used to go to, the one that Jews were now forbidden to enter.

Anne believed in faith and loyalty, she believed that people got what they deserved, but who deserved what was happening now? People were shoving to get closer to the vegetable bins. There were carrots today that were worth quarreling over. Two women were discussing who had been there first in loud voices until it wasn’t a discussion at all, and one pushed the other. Anne wished she could disappear. She wished she could close her eyes and that when she opened them again she’d be in another country. She’d be so far away no one could find her. She could not bear to think life would be no more than it was. Fighting for vegetables. Not looking at rats. She kept her head tilted so no one would know how lost she felt inside. “Can you pay attention to me when I speak?” Edith said to Anne. “There’s something in my eye,” Anne told her mother. It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it could have been. “Let me see.” Edith came toward her and took Anne’s chin in her hand so that she could look into her daughter’s eyes. She’d once thought it was possible to change your fate; even if you were in an unhappy marriage, you could do your best and bring happiness into each day in some small way. Now she didn’t know what she believed anymore. “Are you crying?” Edith asked, surprised when she saw the tears in Anne’s eyes. Her brave daughter who did as she pleased and thought she was special. What had made her cry? They were merely buying vegetables. “No,” Anne was quick to answer as she wrenched awa...

“Thank you,” Anne said to Margot when it was just the two of them standing side by side waiting for their mother to give the grocer their food coupons. Anne kept her voice low. Margot smiled and shrugged. “For what?” “For the lie.” They both laughed then. It was lovely when they felt like confidantes, and it didn’t happen very often, or at least it hadn’t until recently. “It was just a little white lie. I know she means well,” Margot whispered. “Does she?” Anne watched her mother pack the vegetables into a cloth shopping bag. “Of course she does,” Margot said. “People are always hardest on their favorite.” Anne felt her face grow hot with shame. “I am not her favorite.” Margot shrugged. “You’re the one she’s always talking about. You’re the one she worries over.” “Because I don’t behave. She worries because I think too highly of myself, and I don’t get good grades at school.” Margot shook her head. “It’s because you’re the baby.” Anne felt herself flush. “I am not.” “Well, you were, and you were sick so often when you were little. She worried then, and she still does.” Anne had always been certain that Margot was their mother’s favorite; why wouldn’t she be? Anne was difficult, her mother said so all the time, and she knew that she never went out of her way to be nice to her mother and Margot always did. Behaving kindly came naturally to Margot. But as they walked home the oddest thing happened. Edith linked her arm through Anne’s. It was unusual for her to do so, and Anne...

Anne made a list of all the things that had disappeared. It had begun slowly and then it wasn’t slow at all. It was one thing and then it was everything. That was how the Nazis took over, so that people didn’t understand what was happening until their dignity was stripped away and they were no longer considered human. One, two, three and the world had shrunk to nothing. As time passed, more and more rules were set out, and it would continue. No library books, no sitting in the park, no entrance into public buildings, no swimming pools, no vacations or holidays, no hotels, no Jews teaching in schools and universities, no Jewish business to be owned, no radios. Jews who protested were deported; Jews had to deposit their money into a certain bank, where it was stolen from them; Jews had to register any property, then sell it and give the profits to that same bank; Jews were barred from certain professions; Jews were forbidden from riding in cars; they were not allowed to use streetcars, buses, or trains, and eventually could not own bicycles; they could not row or play hockey or be part of any athletics; Jews could not even sit in their own gardens after eight p.m. They knew what they were being told. You are different, you are an outsider, you cannot have what we have, not the simplest thing, you are a mouse, a fly, a speck of dust. You are not like the other people walking down the street, you are a shadow, you are no longer human. They have the power and you have none, and...

“May I tell the story of Purim?” she asked at the end of their dinner. “Of course,” Pim agreed, and so she’d gone off to her room to retrieve what she’d written. “This will make the evening,” Pim said when she returned to the table with her notebook. They all stared at Anne; even her mother waited to clear the table so that Anne could tell the story of Esther, an ordinary girl who saved her people when she pretended not to be a Jew so she could marry a king. When the Jews were in danger, Esther admitted her faith and begged for her people’s lives. Once, in the land of Persia, where we were not free, there was a girl who was not afraid to be herself. When she was done, her father called out, “Bravo!” and Margot applauded, her eyes shining. Anne glanced at her mother, nervous. Edith did nothing more than nod before she went into the kitchen, carrying their dinner plates to the sink. Anne could feel a fury rise inside her. Not one kind word, not a single word of praise. Anne rose from the table so that the chair skittered behind her; she felt heat rise into her face as she followed her mother into the kitchen. She could not be silent. “Is there nothing I can do right?!” she cried. Edith turned to her daughter. She didn’t often share what she felt. Not everyone had such wonderful girls, and people could be jealous just as fates could be cruel. Margot was delightful, a perfect daughter, but Anne had been someone special from the moment she was born. She had howled as if she had...

She saw Old Edgar’s wife sorting through a box of old books in a doorway. The books they had to sell were mostly hidden under blankets that Edgar’s wife had knitted. She was wearing a black coat and a blue headscarf and for some reason she made Anne think of the magpie she hadn’t seen in such a long time. Perhaps it was because the old woman nodded as if she knew Anne; maybe that was the similarity, they looked inside each other and saw what they shared in common. A dread of this city, the need to keep your deepest thoughts secret, a passion for books.