It has been too long since I've read this to give a detailed review, but as hard and gut-wrenching as it was to read, the courage and strength has stuck with me all these years. If one must know of the evil mankind can do, this is a good introduction, because it also shows us the heroic side of mankind. ( )

This little book based around interviews with people who knew Anne Frank was written in the 1950s, so its interest lies in the fact that the survivors who knew her are still young, schoolfriends still in their late 20s or early 30s, or their parents or teachers in late middle age still teaching and so on. This gives the book a more immediate sense of trying to be an attempt by the German author to come to terms with how his fellow countrypeople and his Dutch contemporaries could do the things they did. It's valuable from that perspective, though the writing style is quite simple and story has been told in more detail in other works. ( )