Ghost Of Anne Frank: 'Quit Reading My Diary'
Shocked to learn that the diary containing her most intimate thoughts and feelings has been read by millions of people worldwide, the ghost of Anne Frank held a press conference Monday to tell the world to "stop reading my diary, and put it back where you found it right this second."
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Anne Frank
"I am so embarrassed," Frank said. "I cannot believe that for the last 50 years, millions of people I don't even know have been reading my diary, reading about my first kiss, my huge crush on the boy upstairs, my first period—everything."
"It's bad enough to have your sister sneak into your room and read your diary. But to have it bought by Doubleday and published in 33 languages? That's just mortifying," Frank said. "I knew I should have gotten one with a lock."
Frank said she first found out about the publication of her diary last week, when Edward Walther, a recently deceased 57-year-old from Toronto, approached her in heaven and expressed great admiration for the young girl's diary.
"He said to me, 'Are you Anne Frank? I can't even begin to tell you how much your diary has meant to me. I must have read it at least a dozen times. I've always been particularly moved by your discussion of your budding sexual curiosity, such as that great longing you felt to touch that older girl's breasts and the rush of life-affirming exhilaration you experienced when you got your first period. That kind of self-awareness and honesty is incredibly rare in any human being, much less one who's just 15.' And I said, 'What? What are you talking about? You've read my diary? You know about me and that girl? You know about me getting my period?' I was absolutely humiliated," Frank said.
Added Frank: "That stuff was supposed to be between me and Kitty."
Frank said she was even more distraught to learn about The Diary Of Anne Frank, a theatrical version of her private journal currently playing on Broadway. She called the play—which opened to rave reviews and was hailed as "powerful, gripping theater" by New York Times drama critic Vincent Canby—"like, the most embarrassing thing ever in the history of the world. It's enough to make me want to crawl into a hole and never show my face again."
Frank said she strongly suspects it was her older sister Margot who gave the diary to Doubleday. "Margot would do something like that, stealing my diary from under my bed and getting some major publishing house to print four million copies of it," Frank said. "I cannot even tell you how mad I am at her. I swear, if I find out she did this, she is going to be in such huge trouble."
Jay McInerny, the author, said he had a friend who played Anne in that Broadway play, "The Diary of Anne Frank". She was such a bad actress that when the Nazis broke into the Franks' home in the play the audience yelled, "She's in the attic!"
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