The Annex
The heavy oak bookcase swung shut with a muted thud,
sealing the world of daylight and sirens behind a wall of dusty
novels. Inside the annex, the air smelled of old paper, boiled
cabbage, and the sharp, metallic tang of fear. The floorboards
were the enemy; they groaned under the slightest pressure,
so the inhabitants moved like ghosts, their feet wrapped in
thick wool rags to dampen the sound of their existence.
Every window was a trap, covered by heavy blackouts that
turned midday into a perpetual, dim twilight. Time didn’t move
in minutes, but in the rhythmic cycles of the warehouse below.
When the workers arrived at eight, the annex fell into a stony,
breathless hush. No water could be flushed, no chair moved,
and no cough released. The inhabitants sat in chairs like
statues, clutching books they were too distracted to read, their
ears tuned to the street outside where the heavy boots of
patrols occasionally clicked against the cobblestones.
When evening finally fell and the warehouse grew still, the
tension would crack just enough to allow for a whispered
conversation. They gathered around a small table, the steam
from a thin potato soup rising into the shadows. The light of a
single, low-wattage bulb cast long, flickering shadows against
the peeling wallpaper. In those moments, they weren’t just
fugitives; they were a family clinging to the remnants of a lost
life, finding a strange, defiant comfort in the shared warmth of
their secret, wooden world.
LI: To write a description of life with the Frank Family in the annex in 1942.
This is the description of how i feel living in the annex with the Frank Family during the time when German’s took over the world with Hitler being their leader in 1942. And knowing that there are soldiers out there looking and being forced to live in the annex this is how i describe what living in the annex is like.