History Book: Anne Frank’s final diary entry

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, July 29th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Today, workers try to unravel a mystery stolen away in a bog. Plus, a NASA expedition to the Moon comes to a disappointing end.

EICHER: But first, a diary that would become one of the most widely read books in the world with writings now 80 years old. Here’s WORLD Radio Reporter Emma Perley:

EMMA PERLEY: The year is 1944, a 14-year-old Jewish girl by the name of Anne Frank is in hiding from the Nazis. The diary entries she kept are a window on her world. In one entry … she muses on the meaning of contradictions … Voice actress Leah Johanson reads the diary entry.

ANNE FRANK: Like so many words, it can be interpreted in two ways: a contradiction imposed from without and one imposed from within …

Anne Frank writes … that she feels like two people. One person fun and spirited. The other “deeper and finer.” But THAT person never publicly reveals herself.

ANNE: If I'm being completely honest, I'll have to admit that it does matter to me, that I'm trying very hard to change myself, but that I'm always up against a more powerful enemy.

Anne’s diary is a faithful account of two years of her life in hiding … It describes the big picture and the small details: the war itself and the terror that goes with it … down to the complex relationships she has with her parents and sister. August 1st, 1944 … with but 7 months left to live: these are Anne’s last-known written words.

ANNE: A voice within me is sobbing, "You see, that's what's become of you. You're surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people who dislike you, and all because you don't listen to the advice of your own better half."

Three days after she wrote that, Gestapo agents find and capture Anne and her family. She would die of typhus in a Nazi concentration camp in March, 1945. The exact date is disputed.

Her father Otto would be the only surviving member of the family. He was able to recover Anne’s diary after the war. Otto Frank spoke with NBC about what he read.

OTTO FRANK: It took me a very long time to read it. And I must say, I was very much surprised about the deep thoughts Anne had. Her seriousness, especially her self-criticism … it was quite a different Anne I had known as my daughter.

Anne’s diary becomes one of the most widely read books in the world after its publication in 1947. It’s been translated into more than 70 languages.

AUDIO: Sounds of excavating.

Next, August 1st, 1984. Commercial peat moss-cutters discover a leathery object in an English bog. One of them describes the scene for a QED documentary.

AUDIO: I said, ‘we found something there.’ Took it out and he chucked it over here and it landed here, where this shovel is. I said, ‘It’s a foot! Part of a leg!’

Archaeologists would soon find more parts of a man who had been preserved in the moss for almost 2,000 years. They call him “Lindow Man,” for the Lindow Moss bog where he was found. It’s speculated that his violent death was due to a pagan ritual of human sacrifice. Audio here from a 2022 University of Birmingham lecture.

AUDIO: That preservation thing is exceptional within wetlands and peatlands because of … the absence of oxygen, the lack of decay from bacteria, from fungi.

Nearly 1,000 bog bodies have been found around the world. And they provide valuable insight into the religious practice and even eating habits of ancient cultures. The bog kept Lindow Man so well preserved that scientists found what he ate for dinner the night before: burnt flatbread. His body is now .. permanently displayed at the British Museum.

Finally, July 31st, 25 years ago. A spacecraft crashes into the Moon. NASA scientists have carefully orchestrated the impact in an effort to reveal secrets from the planet’s surface … and establish a lunar outpost for the future. Audio here from a 1998 interview with Principal Investigator Alan Binder.

BINDER: I firmly believe that we are on the verge of moving back to the Moon and starting a lunar base, starting a lunar colony, and to me this is the future of mankind.

NASA sends the unmanned Lunar Prospector into orbit for 19 months. It studies gravity, maps surface composition, and searches for water. If the Prospector finds water, then hopes of colonization on the moon might become reality.

BINDER: The significance of finding water at the poles is very simple. We need it for life support, and we need it for rocket fuel.

The Prospector’s data shows evidence of water at both lunar poles, where the sun never shines and temperatures reach around -310 degrees Fahrenheit. It also discovers strong magnetic fields and an iron-rich core. At the end of the mission, the Prospector hurtles toward the Moon’s surface. Audio here from NASA.

BINDER: If water ice exists on the moon’s surface, scientists thought the impact could free up water vapor that might be detectable from Earth-based observatories and the Hubble Telescope.

Unfortunately, scientists do not detect any water vapor within the dust cloud. But the mission overall proves a success … and it returns much more encouraging data than originally hoped for.

NASA plans to launch a crewed mission back to the Moon in 2025 for further exploration … and to prepare for long-term studies there.

BINDER: Exploring the universe is a phenomenal thing to do. It’s exciting, it’s beautiful, it’s rewarding and it helps develop where we’re supposed to go, in my mind. It’s the future of mankind.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Emma Perley.

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