Anne Frank's diary, a powerful testament to the horrors of the Holocaust, has become a widely used symbol for various causes throughout history. While its message against persecution resonates globally, it's crucial to recognize its specific context as a Jewish narrative. The article argues against using Anne's story out of context, warning that it risks flattening her story and downplaying the unique threat of antisemitism.
We must learn to see her as both a symbol of all persecution and a target of antisemitism — an icon and a human being.“Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes … Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find their parents have disappeared.”
Still, as someone who’s spent years researching Anne and her world, I cringe to see her invoked in contexts far removed from her historical situation. This happened during the Covid-19 pandemic, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested that Anne Frank had more freedom than people required to get the Covid-19 vaccine.
Anne intended her diary to testify to the Nazi persecution of the Jews. She first imagined a public audience for it in March 1944, after hearing a radio address by a minister of the Dutch government in exile who called for people to preserve private documents of the war years for inclusion in a future national archive. At that point she had been keeping a diary since her 13th birthday — nearly two years, most of which she had spent in hiding.
Editors at Doubleday, which published Anne’s book in America as “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl,” shared Otto’s vision, and marketed the book aggressively to a general audience. The introduction — signed by Eleanor Roosevelt, but written by a young Doubleday editor, Barbara Zimmerman — did not include the word “Jew,” emphasizing the diary as a commentary “on war and its impact on human beings.” Doubleday even advertised the book as a Christmas present.
Under such circumstances, it’s hardly surprising that Jews and their allies would emphasize their commonalities with the rest of society rather than their differences. In so doing, they fell into a trap. In order to reach the largest possible audience, the diaryand later the play and movie based upon it, had to portray Anne’s Judaism as marginal to her identity.
Broadening the meaning of Anne’s story doesn’t have to cheapen it. The use of the diary by anti-apartheid activists offers one helpful example. Political prisoners on South Africa’s Robben Island, an isolated compound where many were kept in solitary confinement, gained access to the book, passed it among themselves until the pages fell apart and copied out their favorite quotes. They absorbed the heinous specifics of Anne’s persecution and murder while finding consolation in her fortitude.
ANNE FRANK HOLOCAUST ANTISEMITISM DIARY JEWISH HISTORY
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