“As winter approached, Mrs. Frank began to act oddly. When I left the hiding place, she would follow me downstairs just as far as she could go—to the back side of the bookcase, in fact. It was as if she were escorting me out, but then, rather than bid me goodbye, she’d just stand there and look at me, with an expression of wanting in her eyes. I’d stand and wait for her to say what it was that she wanted of me, but she wouldn’t say a word, just stand there awkwardly.

I began to feel very uncomfortable, standing face to face with her. My mind would ask, what does she want from me? It took a while, but finally I realized that what she wanted was to be able to talk with me in a confidential way, when no one else was around. So I began to leave myself some extra time and would go with Mrs. Frank into the bedroom that she and her husband shared with Margot. She and I would sit on the edge of her bed, and I would listen while she talked.

What she needed to talk about, which she couldn’t talk about in front of the others, was that she was suffering under a great weight of despair. Although the others were counting the days until the Allies came, making games of what they would do when the war was all over, Mrs. Frank confessed that she was deeply ashamed of the fact that she felt the end would never come.

Sometimes, she would complain about Mrs. Van Daan—something no one else had ever done about anyone in the Annex for my ears. If there were tensions and conflicts, they were never aired when one of us was visiting the hiding place. She desperately needed to talk about some of these things.

She’d complain that Mrs. Van Daan was always impatient with her girls, especially Anne, complaining that the frank girls were too free for her. It seemed that Mrs. van Daan was always bringing up her feelings about Anne and Margot at the dinner table. Mrs. van Daan would say things like “Anne’s so fresh ...outspoken. She’s too free.” This criticizing of Anne and Margot upset Mrs. Frank very much.

In a dark voice, she would express the fear-laden thoughts that she was secretly harboring.

“Miep, I see no end coming,” she would say.

Once she said, “Miep, remember this: Germany will not come out of this war the same way it went into it.”

I would listen with a sympathetic ear to whatever Mrs. Frank needed to say. And then, when I could stay no longer, I would have to break the talk, because some chore or other was waiting. I would promise that we would talk again next time.

I would leave her sitting in that room wearing a look of gloom and depression.”