Reading Journal Post 5: Chapters 13-15

     The Embellishment of the camp gained the Danish commissioner's approval. His jovial demeanour, apparent while he was running the inspection, showed that he was blind to the reality of the camp's state. Prisoners were ordered to play "parts" during the inspection; such as bakers in white uniforms making bread and children lining up and playing happily; and false signs were painted by Anneke's father, saying things life "Boy's School" and "Closed for the Holidays". Because of the inspection's success, a movie about Theresienstadt was going to be made. Anneke's father had to work on drawings for this movie. Because of the apparent unfairness of all of this, Anneke became frustrated with her father. She asked him one day, "'You know,...do you have to make those drawings for the movie?'" (155). Anneke's father was very offended that he asked him that, and became upset. He exclaimed, "'You haven't the right to ask me that, child!'" and sat down on a bench, panting; trying to hold himself together.
   Anneke goes on a stream on consciousness on how she feels about her statement:

No, I'm glad I've finally spoken up. Why won't Father do the same? Why won't he tell the Nazis he won't draw lies? But already, I know the answer. He can't tell them anything. He can't speak up to them the way I've just spoken up to him. If he does, he risks everything. Everything! (156)

   Anneke has learned to understand that even though actions seem hypocritical and against everything a person believes in, they sometimes must be done to protect a family. Although she wasn't sorry for what she said, she has long realised from her experiences at camp that things are not as simple as right and wrong.

***

  Later, when Anneke is alone in her house, a group of Nazi soldiers pound at her door. They burst in, yelling, directing Anneke to show them any and all drawings that her father made. They were on a search for any piece of media incriminating to the camp's reputation. Frightened, Anneke showed the angry soldiers all the drawings in the house she knew of. Anneke quickly realised that the soldiers are

...afraid that somehow, one day, people will see the drawings--and know the truth. But if the drawings are destroyed, no one will ever know the truth. There will be no point to our suffering! It will be as if none of this has ever happened...Otherwise, things like this--murders,lies,soldiers terrifying girls--will happen again.  (163)

  The soldier does a horrible thing to Anneke. He "...removes one of his thick leather gloves and sticks his hand down the front of [her] nightgown." She is very frightened and scarred by how he touches her inappropriately, and is too ashamed to tell any of her family members about that part when they come home to a house ransacked by the soldiers.
   Anneke goes onto the roof with another girl from the camp to see Little Fortress and witnesses the torture that the artists caught with incriminating images face. She was very upset by it, and called it another horrible image she had to carry with her. She was glad that her father was not caught, because she didn't know where his real drawing were kept in the house, or whether they even existed when the Nazis grilled her for it.
  Although many dark events occur in these chapters, there is still an air of resolvation in the story. One example of this is when Anneke's father gets a cryptic postcard regarding one of his artist friends whose drawing hand was mutilated at Little Fortress. It read, "Saw O.U. doing a charcoal sketch." Despite his punishment for his drawings, the artist still found a way to draw.