The Diary of a Young Girl is a book based on the writings from a diary written by Anne Frank
while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.  
     Anne Frank began to keep a diary on her thirteenth birthday, 12 June 1942, three weeks before
going into hiding with her mother Edith, father Otto sister Margot and four other people. With the
assistance of a group of  Otto Frank 's trusted colleagues they remained hidden for two years and one
month. They were arrested in 1944 and sent to separate Nazi concentration camps. Anne Frank finally
died of typhus(斑疹伤寒) in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp shortly (about two weeks) before
liberation by British
troops in April 1945. Of the group of eight, only Otto Frank, Anne's father, survived the war. After the
war, he got back the diary that was saved and kept by his friend.
     When Otto Frank read his daughter's diary, he was astonished. "I never knew my little Anne was so
deep". Anne Frank's story has become an example of Jewish suffering under Adolf Hitler, and a warning
of the consequences of racism and persecution(迫害).
     There has been guess about the identity of Kitty, who in Anne's revised diary is the only receiver of
her letters. It was once thought that the name referred to Kitty Egyedi, a prewar friend of Frank's.
However, Kitty Egyedi said in an interview that she was flattered by the assumption but doubted the
diary was addressed to her: "Kitty became so idealized and started to lead her own life in the diary.
The name ... is not meant to be me."
     The character's fictional(虚构的) origin was proved undoubtedly later. Anne had expressed the
desire in the introduction of her diary for one person that she could call her truest friend, that is, a person
to whom she could confide her deepest thoughts and feelings. She observed that she had many "friends",
but (by her own definition) no true, dear friend with whom she could share her innermost thoughts.
In fact, the closest friend Anne had during her tragically short life was her diary, "Kitty", for it was only to "Kitty" that she entrusted her innermost thoughts.