Although Anne always wanted to know everything, the bad news from the world outside could also make her very upset, just as it did her housemates. Anne seems to respond rather lightheartedly to Miep's message that the Van Pels home was cleared out, but other bad news clearly distresses her. On Thursday, October 29, she devotes a few lines to the news about the Van Pels home:

"This morning Miep told us that the furniture has been removed from the van Pels' apartment on Zuider-Amstellaan. We haven't told Mrs. van P. yet. She's been so "nervenmassig" [nervous] lately, and we don't feel like hearing her moan and groan again about all the beautiful china and lovely chairs she had to leave behind. We had to abandon most of our nice things too. What's the good of grumbling about it now?"

Three weeks earlier, on Friday October 9, 1942 she wrote:

"Today I have nothing but dismal and depressing news to report. Our many Jewish friends and acquaintances are being taken away in droves. The Gestapo is treating them very roughly and transporting them in cattle cars to Westerbork, the big camp in Drenthe to which they're sending all the Jews. Miep told us about someone who'd managed to escape from there. It must be terrible in Westerbork. The people get almost nothing to eat, much less to drink, as water is available only one hour a day, and there's only one toilet and sink for several thousand people. Men and women sleep in the same room, and women and children often have their heads shaved. Escape is almost impossible; many people look Jewish, and they're branded by their shorn heads. (...) I feel terrible. Miep's accounts of these horrors are so heartrending, and Miep is also very distraught."

Quoted from: Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl. The Definitive Edition Viking, an imprint of Penguin books Ltd. London in association with The Folio Society 2006.