Ophelia (1989)

I still have the original copy of this piece and hope to recover it when I tackle my archive.

I first read The Diary of Anne Frank in the summer between 3rd and 4th grade, age 8-9, then took the adult library card I’d had since 2nd grade on a research expedition to the Saugus Public Library. At the time, I didn’t yet know about my own Ashkenazi DNA — perhaps some part of me did. Either way, my childhood self had begun a lifelong commitment to antifascism while trying to reconcile the horrors of World War II with my own experience of far lesser persecution and an ancestral remembrance of something more.

This was my first attempt at historical fiction and in trying to understand the psychology of another time and place.

I offer this as autoethnographic proof: strange attractors at work in a human life, and consistency of character over a lifetime.

From the realm of memoir: in earlier school records, perhaps as early as 2nd grade, it was noted that I “failed to form relationships with peers.” To which I can only ask, ladies, gents, and non-binary folx of the jury — where exactly were my peers? Asking for a friend.

Page One Transcript:

Hello, my name is Ophelia. I am a girl. I am ten years old and go to Lincoln Elementary School. My favorite subject is English. I like to write a lot. My science teacher says I have no hope being a writer but my English teacher has high hopes for me. People don’t think girls my age really know what’s going on. They think we are brainless. It is nineteen forty-four. There’s a war going on. A very big and bad one. I understand completely. I know about Hitler and the Jews. About the Nazis in Germany, Poland, and even Russia. So many countries some small and some big. Some not powerful and some very powerful. People are dying. Lives are lost even more. Hundreds died before the war now millions die just because of the war. Women can’t even help in this situation. The men won’t let us. I think that it’s wrong for them not to let us fight alongside them. I know we could help improve the war effort. I can hear air raids every night. Always every night outside my window. There’s one going on right now… My family’s too poor to afford to build a shelter. We barely have a backyard. We tried to flee to the country side but we just couldn’t. Pa got sick and Ma just couldn’t bear to leave the city she said.

Page Two Transcript:

Dear Diary,
Today is February eighteen, nineteen forty-three. The war is getting worse. Adults think that the children don’t understand. Well, most of us do. Ma and Pa tried to take me and us to the country-side, but Pa got sick and Ma couldn’t bear leaving the city. The city of London has grown cold. We are running out of firewood and money fast. Poland isn’t doing too well either…
Hitler has already brain-washed Germany. I’m a bit scared he will do the same to other countries, especially London. I haven’t told you before but I’m Jewish. Everyone has been trying to keep it a secret lately. So just in case a Nazi found my diary I would at least be safe. Well, now I just don’t care about it as people are going to say about my religion. I guess that’s a pretty good start on my attitude for when we finally move to America. Ma says once we pass through into New York that we’re going straight to Boston. Ma said it’s better than New York. I certainly hope she’s right. Well, there’s the air raid siren. Ma says Pa can try to carry the typewriter into the shelter, but by then, I’ll have all my writing ideas juiced out of me. I’ll try to write tomorrow.

From,
Ophelia