What was life in the Annex like?
At the time of World War II, a family of four (known as the Franks) were forced into hiding for being Jewish. With them was a family of three (known as the Van Pels). They lived in a very small annex. There was a very small amount of room, and a scarce amount of food. Along with that, they had to subject themselves to cruel domination.
There were 7 people along with a cat living inside the annex above an office. They had to share rooms and a bathroom. The living room was used as a bedroom, lounging space, kitchen and dining room. Later that year a new person joined the secret annex. Anne (the daughter of the Franks) was later then forced to share her bedroom with him. His name was Fritz Pfeffer “whom she nicknamed
…show more content…
A friend of the Franks (known as Miep Gies) and her husband (known as Jan Gies) agreed to help the Franks hide. She and her husband took the food that they received from their food card (which was limited to only two people) and shared half of their food with the 8 people living inside the annex. That meant that they had to equally split enough food for one person amongst eight people. Because of that, they were constantly starving and hungry.
Another difficulty of living inside the annex was always having to be quiet. This was a considerably large struggle because if they made any kind of a loud noise, there would always be a chance that they could be found. They couldn’t use the bathroom at certain times of the day. Most of the time they couldn’t talk and when they could they had to keep their voices at a minimum level. They also had to keep their walking to a minimum as well.
The final challenge of living inside of the annex was that the morale of the annex was very low. There was extremely little space and sparse amounts of food. There was a vast amount of arguing between all of the people living in the annex, which created an atmosphere that was not positive. Anne wrote in her diary (The Diary of Anne Frank) “It annoys me to be so dependent on the moods here in the Annex, but I'm not the only: we’re all subject to them.” (Frank