"French Anne Frank" Diary Enthralls France

On some days her world was awash in light, on others dark shadows enveloped her and all of Paris.

The secret diary of a young Jewish woman recounting two years under the Nazi occupation portrays the slow shattering of her life, ending with her deportation on her 24th birthday and death in a concentration camp.

Helene Berr's account of life under occupation was destined for her fiance, Jean Morawiecki, who had left Paris to join the Resistance. She secreted the loose pages with the family cook. The diary was turned over to Morawiecki after her death in April 1945.

The diary - published for the first time this month - describes the small joys, the pervasive angst and the growing horror under the Nazis. But hate is a word that Berr, an advanced student of English at the Sorbonne, seemed not to know.

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Berr's diary is set to be published in English and at least a dozen other languages, said Marie Lannurien, head of foreign rights at Tallandier, the French publisher. Requests were coming in from the United States even before the book was released in France on Jan. 3, she said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/11/entertainment/main3700858.shtml

I'll have to remember to keep an eye out for this book.

Sounds like a good read.