What is a girl? A human creature? A girl? A friend? A girl is everything. She is sensitive and assertive, she is beautiful and unique and although she has all these wonderful qualities; During the era of World War II and the Holocaust, women, regardless of whether they were German, Jewish or any other nationality, were carried out by their classic gender responsibilities. This is the case of Anne in “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank and of Liesel in “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak. They had to become a woman in very unusual circumstances and used writing as a form of comfort. Becoming a woman happens in every girl's life until puberty, but for Anne and Liesel, it happens in very unusual circumstances. Anne is a young girl of thirteen when she first hides in the annex; which is a secret living space, as she was Jewish during WWII. She celebrated her fifteenth birthday just before the family's arrest. Her diary is therefore a first-hand experience of the challenges of puberty in these unusual circumstances and the issues she struggles with that are universal to all girls going through puberty. Like any normal girl growing up, she talks about her sexuality. Only in Anne's case, she has no close friends to share these experiences or feelings with because she is hiding. So she writes in her journal what she learns about herself. As she grows up and begins to compare herself to her mother and other women like her sister, this becomes evident when she falls in love with the boy named Peter in the Secret Annex and says, "I know I'm starting very young. . Not even fifteen years old and already so independent, it's a little difficult for others to understand. I'm pretty sure Margot would never kiss a boy unless... amidst papers and books, all these experiences were true. Even though Anne is a Jewish girl and Liesel is a German girl from World War II, they have the same basic experiences like becoming a woman or feeling lonely as a teenager. Comparing these two characters shows that no matter where a young girl is in the world or what she is affiliated with, they all go through the same gender issues. Works Cited Frank, Otto and Pressler, Marjam, Eds. The definitive edition: The Diary of a Young Girl. New York: The Anchor Rose, 1995, Print.SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Book Thief. » SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2013. Internet. April 9, 2014. SparkNotes Publishers. “SparkNote on the Diary of a Young Girl. » SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2003. Internet. April 9, 2014. Zusak, Markus. The book thief. United States: Random House, 2005. Print.