NewsNation/World

Actions

‘Dirty jokes’ revealed on mystery pages of Anne Frank’s diary

Posted at 7:04 AM, May 16, 2018
and last updated 2018-05-16 09:04:13-04

Mystery has swirled around the two pages of Anne Frank’s diary where brown paper was pasted over the writing. But today it was revealed what lied behind the covered up pages.

Thanks to modern image processing technology, the writing from 1942 was uncovered, and four “dirty jokes” appeared.

“I’ll use this spoiled page to write down ‘dirty’ jokes,” Anne wrote on September 28, 1942, just two months after she went into hiding.

She was 13 when she went into hiding from the Nazis with her family. She kept a diary throughout her time in hiding, and after her death, her father, Otto, published it in 1947.

In 2016, the diary was rephotographed by the Anne Frank House and the hidden writing was deciphered.

“Anyone who reads the passages that have now been discovered will be unable to suppress a smile. The ‘dirty’ jokes are classics among growing children,” said Frank van Vree, director of the Netherlands’ Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. “They make it clear that Anne, with all her gifts, was above all also an ordinary girl.”

What was on the pages?

Five crossed-out phrases, four dirty jokes and 33 lines about sex education and prostitution were included on the two pages of her first diary, according to the Anne Frank House.

It’s unclear why she decided to cover up these specific pages, but she mentions throughout her writings she was worried about people reading her private thoughts. She often went back through and added comments to previous journal entries.

“Anne Frank writes about sexuality in a disarming way. Like every adolescent, she is curious about this subject. She also writes about it on other, uncovered pages,” said Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House. “They bring us even closer to the girl and the writer Anne Frank.”