What is the main theme of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl?

The themes of Anne Frank's diary are developed through the cat-and-mouse relationship between the innocent people who are hiding in the upstairs rooms and the powerful Nazi forces that are searching for Jewish civilians to send to their extermination camps. What gives the diary texture and importance is the deadly game Anne and her family and friends are forced to play. They are in imminent danger of being arrested if they make a bit of noise. They must behave like guilty fugitives, while the real guilty parties, the Nazis, are free to roam the city and intrude everywhere.
What is impressive about the book written by such a young girl is that the fugitives all try to lead conventional lives in spite of the horror of their situation. While terrible events take place outside the rooms, Anne continues to document many of the ordinary parts of her life as she grows up. Anne herself continues to study just as if she were still going to school. She is not oblivious to the danger they are all in, but she insists on remaining civilized in an uncivilized world. The themes of self-discovery and optimism are conveyed as Anne writes about the ordinary struggles and interactions taking place inside her little world. Though they undoubtably face unusual danger, the inhabitants of the annex struggle with normal interpersonal problems such as Anne's sparring with Peter and her conflicted feelings about her mother and sister. Though these minor events may seem unimportant, they demonstrate the unwillingness of the fugitives, including Anne, to let the looming threat of the Nazis completely overshadow or define their own lives. Despite the confining situation in which she must live, Anne manages to grow as into a more thoughtful and perceptive young woman, refusing to lose faith in the ultimate goodness in people's hearts. "The Diary of a Young Girl" has become a classic because of the gravity of the conditions under which it was written. In the end the fugitives are all captured, which shows that the danger was always present and always very real.