Anne Frank's Birthday

Anne Frank’s Diary has not been challenged or banned very often here in the United States and when it has, it usually has to do with is seen as “pornography” and at least according to the Alabama State Textbook committee that the book is a “downer”.

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                Other places and other situations the book has drawn more attention, including from those who try declare the book a fraud (it isn’t) or a work fiction.

                Perhaps it would be fair to say that like Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, Frank’s diary was edited (or altered) from the beginning because her father, Otto Frank, did take out passages before he published the diary after the Second World War.  Anne Frank, herself, had gone back and redrafted part of the diary as she become aware that such documents would be in demand after the war.

                One can also understand some critics, who focus on how the diary is taught.  There is some just criticism that the book is taught in a vacuum that significant attention isn’t shown to other victims of the Holocaust (say that the disabled were the earliest victims for instance) or that by using the diary, one is using an unusual case (families really hid together).  Or that Anne’s death is glossed over and the full horror of it is not brought up.   These are valued points.  Additionally, why do we celebrate a victim and disregard the partisans?  These are valid and critical points.

                But the Diary does have several advantages that make it an excellent tool to introduce children to the Holocaust (and yes, I realize that is a very strange sentence).  In many ways, Anne Frank is an every girl and some of the “pornographic” material the diary deals with is issues that many girls confront.  In other ways, the book can be used to talk about prospection because of the figure of Dussel, whom Anne Frank hated, but who is perhaps the most tragic of the company.  It also is the closeness to the reader.  We may not all be partisans, but in many ways, students are closer to Anne then   in many ways, the book is such a multiple use text that it is a teacher’s dream.  Or it should be.

                The charges of pornography come about because of Anne Frank’s writing about her development of her sexuality and self.  She is a teen, after all, and to suggest that a teen doesn’t question this would be silly.               

                But there are plenty of silly people in the world.

                `And let’s talk about the downer aspect.  How many people died in the Jurassic Park movie or in the Hobbit movies?  Death happens.  If we are lucky, it will be Death from the Disc, but to pretend it doesn’t is just silly.

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Disclaimer: Arc via Netgalley.

                If the world was fair, then everyone who has read, or will read, the Diary of Anne Frank could visit the Anne Frank house in person.

                While it is possible to see the house by touring the website, it does not convey the whole claustrophobic feeling.  Even today, there is a feeling of being cut off from the outside.  It brings something more to a reading of the diary.

                There has always been debate about using the diary to teach the Holocaust, mostly centering on either not telling Frank’s whole story or because that story is such a narrow and unusual one.  The diary, however, does something more important, it provides a door in – an ideal door for it is the words of a girl who doesn’t understand why, and those words speak to children today who are trying to understand the same thing.

                This book should be used in conjunction with the diary for it gives more details about those in hiding with Anne.  It makes them more than those who appear because here you have more of the story than Anne Frank’s limited knowledge.  This book fleshes out that knowledge. 

                The biographies include and spend as much time on those besides the Franks.  The Van Pels get some nice space and the biographies shed light on not only their marriage but some of the other behavior that Anne Frank witnessed.  Both Margot and Edith Frank, who are always overshadowed by Otto and Anne Frank, have more space here and in their respective sections, photos of them without their more famous relatives are included.  Pfeffer too gets more space. 

                It isn’t just the other residents of the Annex that get attention; the helps to get space.  While much as been written about Miep Gies, but here Kleiman, Kugler, and Bep Voskuijl get the same amount of attention as does Jan Gies.  What comes across especially when viewing the photographs was the tightness in the group of people. 

                The book is rounded out by very brief information about other people in the surrounding area - such as workers (the cats even get a mention).   The book also includes a timeline and map of important camps, making it a good companion to be used in a classroom or when reading the Diary itself.