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

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

Author: Alice Hoffman

Genre: Historical

Publisher: Scholastic Australia

Published: 1^st October 2024

Format: Paperback

Pages: 304

Price: $19.99

Synopsis: There is a day you never forget, the day the whole world changes. When you close your eyes, light becomes dark, night never ends, beasts walk freely down the street, stars fall from the sky. You were young one second, and then you were far too old. You lived years in minutes and decades in weeks. You wanted to travel, you wanted to grow up, you wanted to be beautiful, you wanted to fall in love. You wanted so much that your heart broke in half, but half a heart is better than none, and your heart is stronger than anyone would guess. You remember everything.

Bestselling author Alice Hoffman delivers a stunning novel about one of contemporary history’s most acclaimed figures, exploring the little-known details of Anne Frank’s life before she went into hiding.

Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl has captivated and inspired readers for decades. Published posthumously by her bereaved father, Anne’s journal, written while she and her family were in hiding during World War II, has become one of the central texts of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust, as well as a work of literary genius.

With the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the Frank family’s life is turned inside out, blow by blow, restriction by restriction. Prejudice, loss, and terror run rampant, and Anne is forced to bear witness as ordinary people become monsters, and children and families are caught up in the inescapable tide of violence.

In the midst of impossible danger, Anne, audacious and creative and fearless, discovers who she truly is. With a wisdom far beyond her years, she will become a writer who will go on to change the world as we know it.

Critically acclaimed author Alice Hoffman weaves a lyrical and heart-wrenching story of the way the world closes in on the Frank family from the moment the Nazis invade the Netherlands until they are forced into hiding, bringing Anne to bold, vivid life.

Based on extensive research and published in cooperation with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, When We Flew Away is an extraordinary and moving tour de force.

~*~

The Diary of Anne Frank has been an important book for decades that has taught generations about life under the Nazis in hiding. It was published posthumously by her father, and the story of Anne’s family in hiding during World War Two is a text that many people know. Anyone who has read the diary knows of Anne’s fate and what happened during her years in hiding, yet, what happened before that? How did Anne become the person we know from the diary?

Alice Hoffman has written a novel about the years leading up to Anne’s family heading into hiding. Starting in 1940, when Anne is eleven, and covering the next two years, Alice explores Anne’s life before the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, and what follows as Anne and her family’s lives are restricted because of who they are – from curfews to the schools they can attend, where they can shop, what they can buy, and wearing yellow stars. Alice reimagines what Anne might have said and done, and how she might have felt using extensive research and collaboration with the Anne Frank House to highlight what happens when restrictions are placed on a specific group of people with no reasoning whatsoever. It allows Anne’s voice to evolve, for readers to come to an understanding of what led to her diary and desire to keep a record of what she experienced and why.

Not only is it an exploration of the damage that restrictions can do, and how people respond, but it also shows what might have been. Who Anne and her family were before they had to go into hiding. It’s a poignant and bittersweet novel, because anyone who has read the diary or studied World War Two knows Annes fate and the fate of millions of other Jewish people, as well those with Slavic heritage, Polish people, Roma and Sinti people, as well as disabled people, gay men, lesbians and transgender people – anyone the Nazis saw as undesirable. It serves as a solemn reminder that under such regimes, nobody is safe unless the regime accepts who you are or determines your worth. That’s what this book explores on a deeper level. Not just Anne’s story, but what happens when the people you thought were your friends suddenly turn on you, and probably all due to propaganda and lies that make it harder for people in Anne’s situation to live and speak out.

When We Flew Away reminds us that it is important to speak out, and to hold onto hope in dark times. Reading it and seeing Anne living and laughing is both a joy and sad, because we are reminded of the dreams she had for herself, and the dreams her mother and Oma had for her never came to fruition.  In this book these conversations are part of Alice’s fictionalised reimagining based on her research, and highlight the presence of hope and its role in survival during Nazi occupations and the Holocaust. I feel that this is an important book to read, because it enriches the diary, and highlights how the type of restrictions that Anne and her family face happen. They happen slowly and incrementally – at first, perhaps, without people wholly realising or understanding the changes. What people are told is deceptive and leads to tragedy in the end. In a world where differences are used against anyone for any reason, it is books like this that remind us of what this behaviour can lead to. It is an important book, and one that we can read knowing Anne’s fate. I felt this made it feel heavier as the narrative progressed, but this is what makes it, and the diary important texts. They remind us of what can happen when evil triumphs, and asks us what we would do if we were faced with a similar scenario.