He gets to and I have to!

May 16, 2018 7:58 AM

Two hidden pages have been found in Anne Frank's diary. Covered with gummed brown paper to hide her risqué writing from her family, the pages contain dirty jokes and musings on sex.
posted by DirtyOldTown (39 comments total)

Love this. I'm a huge Anne Frank buff, and had no idea this existed.

I WILL visit Amsterdam one of these years!!!
posted by Melismata at 7:59 AM on May 16, 2018

I don't know how I feel about this... Publishing her diary always seemed problematic to me, but publishing pages she clearly covered up herself.... I don't know.
posted by Pendragon at 8:16 AM on May 16, 2018 [27 favorites]

Some fucking mug: They aren't exactly progressive jokes.
Me: She was a juuuuust pubescent child who lived 75 years ago and literally never got to leave the house. How woke did you expect her to be?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:17 AM on May 16, 2018 [54 favorites]

Pendragon: I hear what you're saying, but before I learned about Anne Frank it was really really hard to get the Holocaust. I understood the "facts" about what happened, but I didn't fully grasp it. Stories that put a face, a name, and a personality in my head impacted me much more than the horrifying, incomprehensible raw numbers.

Maybe that's not worth it? It's not really my call, but I do think it was really invaluable for me and my peers when we were about Anne's age.
posted by ODiV at 8:23 AM on May 16, 2018 [36 favorites]

As a former pubescent girl I find this pretty liberating. Anne Frank is so often held up as a paragon of moral virtue and resilience that I think it's great to see how fully human she was, how she gave herself permission to explore sexuality and record her evolving understanding of it even in extremely repressive conditions. It is a rebuke to shame. I'm sorry she had to cover the pages up, but not at all surprised. I lived in fear of my sexual thoughts being discovered too.

Layers and layers of oppression, even when already sequestered in an attic.
posted by Miko at 8:26 AM on May 16, 2018 [62 favorites]

Covering it up could be from shame, but it could also just be what she wanted to do. Some people just like to keep some elements of their sexual selves restricted to only a select group of people.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:31 AM on May 16, 2018 [8 favorites]

This immediately reminded me of the Anne Frank episode of The Dead Authors Podcast, wherein the tragedy is never touched upon and Anne is just played as a normal teenage girl obsessed with dirty jokes and musings on sex. Turns out it was an accurate portrayal!
posted by painquale at 8:41 AM on May 16, 2018 [6 favorites]

Now she's a little boy in Spain, playing pianos filled with flames.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:46 AM on May 16, 2018 [20 favorites]

This immediately reminded me of the Anne Frank episode of The Dead Authors Podcast, wherein the tragedy is never touched upon and Anne is just played as a normal teenage girl obsessed with dirty jokes and musings on sex.

painquale: I remember reading the show info when that episode dropped and thinking to myself "How the hell are they going to pull that off?" and yet somehow between the two of them, Jamie Denbo and Paul F. Tompkins managed to make it not only inoffensive but very funny!
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:54 AM on May 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

There is a little bit of exploration of sexuality in Anne Frank's diary that often gets cut out of school editions, but has been available since the 90's. I myself got in trouble for reading the uncensored version at school. (A lot of my childhood stories start with "I got in trouble for reading..." and I think that explains a lot about me, now.)

I am 100% not surprised as to the content of these jokes, since they're really close to jokes that I passed on notes to classmates. She was just a kid, let her tell her dirty jokes in her own diary.

I would probably be mortified if someone read my teenage diary too, but I would feel a little better about it since it's historically important. I've always wondered how Zlata Filipovic feels now, since she lived to grow up.
posted by blnkfrnk at 8:54 AM on May 16, 2018 [15 favorites]

I don't mean this as an argument for or against posthumously publishing diaries, just a personal observation... but if someone had told me when I was 14 that my diary would be published without my permission after my death and would become the most read diary in the history of the world and a cornerstone of multiple disciplines of study, and my name would be world-famous... this would have satisfied something very deep-seated in me, such that I would have nodded solemnly and pronounced that this was as it should be. I have a feeling this would be a common reaction among 14 year-olds.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:55 AM on May 16, 2018 [95 favorites]

I just had to look at the original text and what do you know, it turns out Uncle Walter was probably gay, at least according to Anne.

In the context of the passage which begins with "Alle mannen als ze normaal zijn gaan met vrouwen..." (all men, if they are normal, sleep with women), there is a very brief sentence "Oom Walter is niet normaal" (Uncle Walter is not normal).
posted by Laotic at 8:59 AM on May 16, 2018 [10 favorites]

I have a feeling this would be a common reaction among 14 year-olds.

This is 100% the reason I kept a diary from the ages of 11 to 18. Not even joking. They're lost now, to the betterment of mankind as a whole.
posted by Ziggy500 at 9:23 AM on May 16, 2018 [16 favorites]

In the appendix of the “complete” edition, someone in Anne’s family tells her that one of the Dutch newspapers has put out a call for (to use today’s parlance) non-traditional WWII narratives. Anne was rewriting her journal with postwar publication in mind. I understand the concerns here about posthumously publishing her journal, but she did want a version of her journal published.
posted by pxe2000 at 9:28 AM on May 16, 2018 [16 favorites]

The institutions involved in the latest research said that because of copyright issues, it is unclear whether the passages will be incorporated into new editions.

This is seriously fucked up.
posted by Mitheral at 9:30 AM on May 16, 2018 [7 favorites]

The post's title felt warmly familiar when I read it in its full context, as I remember reading the same joke when I was around Ms. Frank's age, with the punchline "Sam, I have to! But you??"
posted by the sobsister at 9:36 AM on May 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

A couple of articles picked up on Gay Uncle Walter: Times of Israel, LGBTQ Nation. Neither add anything more than the bit Laotic quoted.

Uncle Walter was sent to Sachsenhausen in 1938. He was released a few weeks later and eventually made his way to the United States.
posted by Nelson at 9:41 AM on May 16, 2018 [8 favorites]

Yes, Anne herself wanted her diary to be published after the war, so I have no problems with that. I always appreciated the insight she offered into life in WWII. And these pages definitely add an extra layer to that, it makes her even more relatable.

But she never intended for these specific pages to be published. In fact, she went through some lenghts to prevent that. So I'm not entirely comfortable with this being out in the open, even so many years after her death.
posted by Ms. Next at 9:45 AM on May 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

I WILL visit Amsterdam one of these years!!!

Visiting that house was an essential part of my visit to Amsterdam. But man, I don't know if I could go back and do it again. Even writing this and memory flashing back, I'm feeling uncomfortable and sad and disturbed.

It's like watching Grave of the Fireflies: necessary, would strongly encourage others to experience, but would personally not do again.
posted by linux at 10:28 AM on May 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

When I went to Amsterdam and saw the Anne Frank House it was one of the most solemn experiences of my life. And then I sat down in the cafe for a coffee and the family of four next to me had a whipped cream fight using the toppings from their desserts. The rest of the room was just aghast.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:34 AM on May 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

I saw this on twitter yesterday and just presumed it was a grotesque, unfunny joke.

I'm afraid our age may have broken me.
posted by MrJM at 10:49 AM on May 16, 2018

whipped cream fight

Reminds me of when I was in Dublin and came across the Famine Memorial sculptures (here's the Yelp page for it, of all things, but there are some nice, thoughtful comments there). It's really striking. Soon after we got there, a group of other tourists came by and started making ridiculous poses to take pictures with the figures. It was pretty fucking disgusting.
posted by ODiV at 10:49 AM on May 16, 2018

Thanks Nelson, to flesh Uncle Walter Holländer, who died unwed, childless, at the age of 71, out a bit: his escape to the U.S., a photo with an unknown man.
posted by Laotic at 11:25 AM on May 16, 2018 [9 favorites]

I saw this on twitter yesterday and just presumed it was a grotesque, unfunny joke.

Hm? What's grotesque and unfunny about a 13-year-old girl thinking about sex and writing about that in her diary?
posted by holborne at 11:53 AM on May 16, 2018

I mean, you do know there's an entire genre of "edgy" jokes about Anne Frank, right? It's not really hard to imagine how someone could come across this headline in Twitter and presume it was going to link to some shitty 4chan-type comedy piece.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:03 PM on May 16, 2018 [5 favorites]

I think he meant grotesque in that someone was putting words into her mouth for notoriety/clicks/whatever.
posted by ODiV at 12:08 PM on May 16, 2018

I didn’t think anything could make me even sadder about her fate, and the fate of her family, but this did it. It makes her more human, more familiar, less of an icon, and underscores the brutality and inhumanity of the Holocaust in a truly visceral way.

Rest In Peace, Ms. Frank. The Nazis are back, and we’re fighting them with everything we’ve got.
posted by panglos at 12:26 PM on May 16, 2018 [8 favorites]

Copyright strikes again: The institutions involved in the latest research said that because of copyright issues, it is unclear whether the passages will be incorporated into new editions.
posted by BungaDunga at 12:26 PM on May 16, 2018

I mean, you do know there's an entire genre of "edgy" jokes about Anne Frank, right?

In point of fact, no, I was not aware of that.

I think he meant grotesque in that someone was putting words into her mouth for notoriety/clicks/whatever.

Fair enough -- I misread. My apologies.
posted by holborne at 12:31 PM on May 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

if someone had told me when I was 14 that my diary would be published without my permission after my death and would become the most read diary in the history of the world and a cornerstone of multiple disciplines of study, and my name would be world-famous... this would have satisfied something very deep-seated in me, such that I would have nodded solemnly and pronounced that this was as it should be.

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
Of the infinite armies of cybernetic graduate students
Brimming with love
And attention,
for whom you and you and you alone will be
the only one in the year 2018
worth paying attention to,
patiently standing in line
at the excavator rental agency
breathless, but humming
the tune you had stuck in your head
on the day you read
this post
on
"Meta-Filter".
posted by ssr_of_V at 3:37 PM on May 16, 2018 [5 favorites]

Does anyone know where to find the dirty jokes? Every article on this I've found had 1 or maybe 2 of them, including this one, but supposedly there were a few more. Maybe the news outlets can't publish them, but is there a page with the full transcript?
posted by TreeHugger at 5:54 PM on May 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

I guess I’m somewhat taken aback that, despite the diary having been an object of investigation and interest and curation for 75 years, two extra pages somehow eluded the curators’ attention until now.

I understand that the pages were covered with brown paper (presumably concealed as the inside front and back covers?) but still...I guess she did a really good job of it.

It’s a little like the frisson of bewildered excitement of discovering the entrance to a previously hidden room in your house, just off the kitchen, concealed by the wallpaper...
posted by darkstar at 8:26 PM on May 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

There is a translation posted on Reddit.
posted by the letter at 8:36 PM on May 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

> The institutions involved in the latest research said that because of copyright issues, it is unclear whether the passages will be incorporated into new editions.

This is seriously fucked up.

I am 0% lawyer, but from having read a bunch of stuff set out by lawyers from the Wikipedia project so as to make sure that old photos I upload don't get deleted—in many jurisdictions the copyright clock starts from first publication rather than when a work was written.

So if these two pages weren't published until decades and decades after the rest, their copyright period may be completely out of sync with the rest of the book. My first thought upon reading the above was that the majority of the book may be in the public domain while those two pages are still under copyright presently; and for various reasons (including, for example, wanting to make an inexpensive or freely-copyable edition) publishers may leave out the two copyrighted pages.
posted by XMLicious at 9:58 PM on May 16, 2018

Ya, that is the fucked up part.
posted by Mitheral at 10:56 PM on May 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

I think it would be more fucked up if, even today, Anne Frank didn't get the same rights as other German citizens.
posted by XMLicious at 11:58 PM on May 16, 2018

From the article:
Those passages were censored by her father before the diary was first published in 1947 but became available in more recent unabridged editions.

(emphasis mine)

It's good to remember that the Netherlands in 1947 was a -very- different place than 2018, and that these jokes could have been, in fact, rather progressive for the printed literature at the time.
posted by Zigurana at 4:25 AM on May 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

Copyright status of the Diary of Anne Frank. It's copyrighted until 2036, or maybe 2051, in Amsterdam. It's public domain in other countries like Poland. There is an argument that it should have entered the public domain in 2016, 70 years after Anne Frank's death, but that argument doesn't prevail everywhere. It comes down to some fairly technical points. Adding two pages of new material no doubt just complicates all this.
posted by Nelson at 6:39 AM on May 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Long story short, "copyright" is one fucked up concept, currently miles away from the author's intent.

And I will never forget, nor forgive the government of the United States for denying her refugee visa. With that stain on our National Soul, we should be welcoming each and every refugee applying for asylum in perpetuity.
posted by mikelieman at 6:57 AM on May 17, 2018 [3 favorites]