A photograph of Peter Schiffer published by Reuters. READ NEWS HERE. The one with the "beautiful brown eyes" who Anne Frank recalled as her "one true love" in the diary she wrote whilst in hiding in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.
The following is an excerpt of of Anne Frank's true diary from the critical edition which details her 13th birthday.Only a very few fragments of this text appear in the published Diary. Those passages which appeared are italicized, including a reference to Peter Schiffer.
Sunday 14 June 1942.
I think the next few pages will all have the same (page) date, because I still have a lot to tell you.
I'll start with the moment I got you, or rather saw you lying on my birthday table, (because the buying, when I was there as well, doesn't count.)
On Friday, June 12th, I woke up at six o'clock, and no wonder; it was my birthday. But of course I was not allowed to get up at that hour, so I had to contain my curiosity until a quarter to seven. Then I could bear it no longer, and went to the dining room, where I received a warm welcome from Moortje (the cat).
I closed the communicating doors of course. Soon after seven went to Mummy and Daddy and then to the sitting room to undo my presents, the first to greet me was you, possibly the nicest of all. Then on the there were a bunch of roses, a plant, and some peonies, and more arrived during the day.
From Mummy and Daddy I got a blue blouse, Variety, which is the latest party game for adults, something like Monopoly, a bottle of grape juice, which to my mind tasted a bit like wine, and which has now begun to ferment and I may have been right, since wine is made from grapes after all; then a puzzle; a bottle of peek-aroma "with acorns" (I got that later, I mean "the acorns"; a jar of ointment; a 2½ guilder banknote; a token for two books; a book from Katze, the Camera Obscura, but Margot has got that already, so I swapped it; a plate of home-made biscuits, baked by me, of course, for I'm very keen on baking biscuits at the moment; a little dish of molasses candy, but it is horribly sticky; a bowl of "truffles," from Daddy; a little plate of Marie biscuits; a letter from Grandma, right on time, but that was an accident, of course; and a home-made.
Then I came home at five o'clock, because I had gone to gymnastics, (although I am not allowed to do it because my arms and legs go out of joint) and I chose volleyball for my classmates as my birthday game. Later they all danced in a circle around me and sang "happy birthday to you". When I got home Sanne Ledermann was already there, and I'd brought Ilse Wagner, Hanneli Goslar and Jacqueline van Maarsen along with me from gymnastics, because they are in my class. Hanneli and Sanne used to be my two best friends, and people who saw us together always said there they go Anne, Hanne and Sanne.3 I only got to know Jacqueline van Maarsen at the Jewish Secondary School and she is known as my best friend. Ilse is Hanneli's best friend, and Sanne goes to a different school, where she has her friends.
Five of us formed a club called "the little bear, minus 2" or t.l.B-2 for short. That was because we thought the little Bear had 5 stars, but we were wrong there, because it has seven stars, just like the great Bear; minus 2 therefore means that Sanne is the leader and Jacque is the secretary and that we (Ilse Hanneli and I) are left to make up the club. It's a ping-pong club.
I was given a lovely book on the occasion namely Tales and Legends of the Netherlands by Joseph Cohen, but unfortunately they gave me the second part, and so I swapped the Camera Obscura for Tales and Legends of the Netherlands part 1, including a book from Mummy, for it is very expensive. I got 6 beautiful carnations from Hello. Hello is a second cousin or a first cousin once removed of Wilma de Jonge, and Wilma de Jonge is a girl who takes our tram and who seemed very nice at first and actually is quite nice, but she talks all day long about nothing but boys and that gets a bit tiresome.
Hello has a girl friend Ursula or Ursul for short.
But I am his real girl friend odd isn't it!
Everyone thinks I'm in love with Hello, but that is absolutely untrue. Aunt Helene brought me a puzzle; aunt Stephanie a lovely little brooch; aunt Leny a marvelous book Daisy's travel adventures, and a bracelet from Anne with a kiss; Mr. Wronker a box of Droste and a game; Mrs. Lederman a roll of acid drops; Mrs. Pfeffer a roll of acid drops; Mr. van Maarsen a bunch of sweet peas;
Peter van Pels a bar of milk chocolate, Mrs Pfeffer and Mr. Wronker flowers as well and so I was thoroughly spoiled. This afternoon I also got something from the children in my class. Yesterday evening we showed a film "The lighthouse keeper", with Rin-tin-tin; and we're going to have it this afternoon again, lovely!!!!
I shall still get the Myths of Greece and Rome with my own money. Another book from Mr. Kohnke and at Blankevoort's a box for storing Variety. Now I must stop next time I'll have so much to write in you again, that is to tell you, bye-bye, we're going to be great pals.
Daisy's mountain holiday is really a very beautiful book; I was deeply moved by the story about the girl who was so rich and yet so good and who died at the end, but that was inevitable and precisely what makes it so beautiful.
This morning in my bath I was thinking how wonderful it would be if I had a dog like Rin-tin-tin. I would call him Rin-tin-tin too and he'd be at school all the time with the caretaker or if the weather was good in the bicycle shed. I have made a rough sketch of my underground palace, as I call it to myself. I hope that this wish of mine will be fulfilled one day, but there would have to be a miracle then, since it doesn't usually happen that food and money and things like that are supplied all the time and that you can set sail even to America or that you can just disappear under the ground and then live there, it's too beautiful to be true. Mummy always wants to know who I'm going to marry, but I don't think she'll ever guess that it's Peter, because I managed without blushing or flickering an eyelid, to get that idea right out of their minds. I am fonder of Peter [Shiffer] than I have ever been of anyone else, and I keep telling myself that it's only to hide his feelings that Peter goes round with all those girls; he also probably thinks that Hello and I are in love, which is quite untrue, because he is just a friend or as Mummy puts it one of my beaux.