Cultured Views

Happy Birthday Anne Frank

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Today marks the 78th birthday of a little girl who is one of my all time heroes. Anne Frank. Of course, those of us who have read her diary know that she never had the chance to grow out of her teens let alone turn 78. Those of you who, by some miracle, have not heard of her please heed my advice and acquire a copy of ‘The Diary Of Anne Frank’.

Today, her diary is officially 65 years old.

This was a child who was, along with her family, hounded out of their own country, Germany, in the 1930’s. Why? because they were of the Jewish faith. They were German, many generations German, but Jewish. And that mean’t trouble for them and so many others like them.

Her family fled to Holland and there they settled; lived, worked, grew, loved, were educated, played, laughed, felt safe, shopped, went to the beach, took holidays…just like any other family. Until 1940. When the Nazi’s brought their war machine of hate to Holland. Anne and her family could flee no more, they were trapped.

In 1942 Anne and her parents, and sister Margot, went into hiding in the annexe of a building where her father had his business. For two years they stayed hidden inside the walls of their refuge, unable to go outside, unable to enjoy the basic freedoms that the rest of the non-Jewish population took for granted. While around them, and sometimes viewed by them through the drawn shades of their windows, their fellow Jewish citizens were rounded up and sent to misery, torture and death.  Few escaped. Many tried. Most failed.

Anne, through her diary, tells us first hand, what it was like to be persecuted. To be of a group of people that were declared ‘bad’, to be of the ‘wrong kind’…and what happens when a population is so easily seduced by the promises of a fanatical politician.

She also shows us how stoic and strong a child of 13/14/15 years of age can be. How strongly felt is injustice by the young, how deeply felt love can be, how hopeful the young can be, how endlessly optimistic the young can be despite whatever horrors and despair are going on around them. And how trapped they are by those horrors.

Time after time, throughout her diary, Anne puts her elders to shame. How petty could their behaviour could be compared to Anne’s mature outlook on the happenings inside her small, cramped world. So often she turns the tables; reducing the adults to argumentative ‘children’, while retaining the perspective of someone way beyond her years.

She was only 15 when she died. In a concentration camp at Bergen Belsen, along with millions of other ‘Anne’s’; male or female, baby, toddler or teenager. So many countless children who saw what life was dealing them through eye’s that would never be ‘young’ again…even if they survived.

Anne Frank left us a legacy that showed us war and persecution, hate and intolerance,  through the eyes of a child. It is a perspective that should never have happened, and must never happen again.

Anne, your diary is safe. It has become a treasure of the 20th century. Happy birthday.

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