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

by Alice Hoffman

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...