Anne Frank
It was August 1944. The World War II was at its height.
Germany under Hitler’s dictatorship was a menace. The Jews were being
persecuted by the Nazis. The terror of
Fascism had spread. The Jews were desperate for survival. In a small office
building in Amsterdam, hiding from the German gun was the Frank family. Their
only crime was that they were Jews.
Anne Frank was the second daughter of Otto Frank, a banker
by profession. She was born on June 12, 1929. Her elder sister was Margot. They
lived in Germany, till the unjust regime of Hitler’s army made it impossible
for them to survive.
They shifted to Amsterdam in the hope of a life free from
Hitler’s hatred. But that was not to be. In 1942, the family went into hiding.
They lived in hiding for two and a half years. It was in this secret annexe
that Anne Frank, a young girl of 13 years recorded her daily life and
impressions in a diary that she had received as a birthday gift. She had hoped
to publish it after the war. The young girl had planned to see a brighter
tomorrow, when the scars of hatred would only be a dim memory. But destiny had
different plans.
On August 4, 1944, four Dutch Nazi soldiers and one German
Nazi soldier stormed into the secret annexe. Mr Kraler, their Dutch friend and
confidante, after being mercilessly harassed by the Nazi troops revealed the
whereabouts of the Frank family and ransacked the place for money and jewels.
In their endeavour for more booty, they emptied Mr. Frank’s briefcase. Anne’s
diary was in the pile of papers that was emptied on the floor. No one took
notice of it then. A week later, after the arrest, Miep, the Frank family’s
Dutch friend came back to the secret annexe. She discovered Anne’s diary. The
diary contained detailed information of the Frank family’s life in hiding. It
included help rendered by their friends like Miep, Elli, Mr. Koophius, Mr.
Vossen and Mr. Kraler. It had volatile information. Miep, risking her life,
kept the diary with her. It was only in 1945 when Otto Frank by some weird
stroke of destiny, surviving the horror of the concentration camp at Auschwitz,
returned to Amsterdam. On reaching Amsterdam, he learnt from a friend that his
wife and daughters had perished. A friend described Anne’s last days at Belsen
camp as “cold and hungry, her head shaved and skeleton-like form draped in a
coarse, shapeless, striped garb of the concentration camp.” This description
choked Otto with immeasurable grief. The image of Anne as his ‘Tender one’ came
to his eyes. Anne had been an overflowing bundle of energy. With her delightful
chatter, she had been a constant source of joy to Otto Frank. He could easily
recollect the delight that Anne had demanded from life. Her cheerful optimism
in the face of the most demanding perils was a quality that few could boast of.
Otto remembered Anne’s boundless energy on their first day in hiding. The
secret annexe had been in an unused state for a very long time. It was covered
with cobwebs and dirt. Anne was, Otto remembered, not at all deterred. Instead,
she had plunged into the task at hand. Cleaning the shelves, dusting the
cupboards and pasting pictures of her favorite film stars was done with
characteristic enthusiasm. Otto could not believe that this little girl, with
so much zest for life had now become a part of nameless history. His remorse
was great when he realized that the past would now remain merely a recollection
of fragments that could only be reconstructed again and again in the long
lonely hours of twilight. The horrors of the German genocide would simply become
a distasteful part of human history, that would at best be recorded in some
cold pages of a history book. The unforgivable German atrocities would only
remain cold facts that happened to someone at sometime. For the future
generations, the German holocaust would just be something they would like to
forget.
I was at this juncture that Otto Frank met Miep, the Dutch
typist who had been the family’s angel of mercy during their trying days in
hiding. Miep gave Otto, the diary that she had found in the secret annexe.
Seeing Anne’s familiar writing scrawled across the pages overwhelmed Otto. It
was days before he was able to actually get down to reading the diary.
Sensitively written, the diary was an account of a girl’s
blossoming into teenage life. The pressures of a life in hiding were visibly
marked in the words that she wrote on every page. After being isolated from the
world for nearly 16 months, Anne wrote, “I feel like a song-bird whose wings
have been brutally torn out and who is flying in utter darkness against the
bars of its own cage”. The problems of coping with the unanswered questions of
life were all portrayed with vivid clarity and depth. Beneath the veneer of a
cheerful chatterbox was a girl with the most passionate heart and a profound insight
into life that was almost ascetic. On religion she wrote, “people who have
religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift in believing in heavenly
things.”
Otto Frank was painfully torn by the past that was gone
forever. Reading the diary, he rediscovered the person that was behind the
sprightly little girl. His daughter’s attempt to conceal her inner fear and
uncertainty so as to save her family from undue anxiety could only be
categorized as brave. Her extreme love for her father, her inevitable
adolescent conflict with her mother, together with the sibling rivalry between
the two sisters documented in all sincerity made Otto Frank understand Anne
Frank’s diary such a success all over the world. For generations now, young
girls who have read the diary have identified with Anne. Atter its publication
Otto Frank was overwhelmed with the response he received from all over the
world. A typical letter read, “Oh Mr. Frank, she is so much like me that
sometimes I do not know where myself begins and Anne Frank ends”.
At first Otto had no intention of publishing the book. He
started to copy parts of the manuscript for his old mother who was still alive.
He gave one typed copy to a close friend who in turn lent it to a professor of
modern history. The professor devoted an entire article to it in a Dutch
newspaper. The article was widely read. On popular demand, Otto half-heartedly
gave the manuscript to some Dutch publishers, two of whom refused publication.
The third publisher accepted it. It was an instant success. He sold 150, 000
copies of the Dutch edition alone. Other editions followed. The figure of the
sale was phenomenal. Otto received letters from all over the world. Some were
just addressed to, “Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank. Amsterdam”. The
response was global. Otto had to retire from his business and take up the care
of his daughter’s book as a full-time job. He answered each of the letters he
received personally. All the royalties of the book were devoted to humanitarian
causes. Otto felt that this is what his daughter would have wanted.
Anne Frank’s life, though short, touched people all over the
world. The dramatization of the book by Francis Goodrich and Albert Hackett,
won the Pulitzer prize for Drama in 1956-57. It played in 20 different
countries to two million people. It ran in London for six months at the Phoenix
Theatre. Twentieth Century Fox turned it into a film. ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’
written by an impressionable 15-year-old girl in such candid simplicity,
captured the hearts of millions all over the world. Anne’s story retold in
dramatic artistic mediums turned the cold facts of history into pulsating
reality. Audiences when confronted with the thumping of Nazi boots on the stage
were at once faced with their own failure as human beings. The onus lay, not on
the Germans alone, but, on the whole human race for being nothing more than
helpless spectators. The audience, while seeing the play in heavy remorseful
silence, were afraid to face each other. Each one felt the burden of guilt. The
Dusseldorf, producer of ‘Anne Frank’, the play in Germany, talking of the
success of ‘Anne Frank’ said “Anne Frank’ has succeeded because it enables the
audience to come to grips with history, personally and without denunciation. We
watch it as an indictment, in the most humble, pitiful terms, of inhumanity to
fellow men. No one accuses us as Germans. We accuse ourselves.” The drama
strove to portray the futility of Anne’s death, and above all, the futility of
hatred itself.
Anne’s life was an embodiment of faith in humanity. Midst
such perils and racial prejudice, Anne never abandoned hope in humanity.
Despite harsh rejections. Anne continued to trust. A passage in Anne’s journal
reads, ”In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at
heart”. At Auschwitz, she proved to be a courageous leader. She dared to stand
up for her rights and ask for food. Having lost her mother on their way to
Auschwitz in a cattle-truck and being forced to separate from her father, Anne
gained strength only from her sister’s presence. Margot became Anne’s reason
for living this life of painful hardship inside the iron gates of Auschwitz
where it was ironically inscribed “Work makes men free.” Soon they were
deported to Belsen camp where due to the unhygienic conditions of living, both
the sisters caught typhus. They, nevertheless struggled on until one day,
Margot lying above Anne’s bunk bed suddenly collapsed due to fatigue. Margot’s
death snapped Anne’s last tenuous link to life. It broke her spirit. Anne died
in March 1945, two months before Holland was free and three months before her
sixteenth birthday.
Anne’s life healed scares that even a veteran psychologist would
have found a daunting task. It instilled in the Germans a sense of shame and a
desire to make amends for the past wrongs. German school children would often
write to Otto Frank voicing their opinion against racial persecution. Social
homes for young people, organisations combating Anti-Semitism or any other
champions of human rights in Germany after the war all bore Anne Frank’s name.
her name had become a symbol of secular and religious tolerance. The
headmistress of one of the largest schools in England wrote to Otto Frank. “It
must be a source of deep joy to you-in all your sorrow-to know that Anne’s
brief life is, in the deepest sense only just beginning”. In 1957, a group of
120 students cycled to Belsen to lay wreaths of flowers on the graves thee. For
one unnamed grave in the hundreds there, spoke a story of complete courage and
faith in humanity. It had to be honoured.
Though gone forever, Anne Frank has left behind a legacy of
courage, faith and love for the future generations to benefit from. Anne wrote,
I want to go on living after my death. And therefore I am grateful to God for
giving me this gift ……… of expressing all that is in me.”
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