She was only one of ten million victims of the Holocaust, but somehow her story, as recorded in her diary, can move us more than pondering the huge number of victims who left no testimony. Let her story, then, be multiplied by ten million, for though not every victim was young, all were loved.
This is the only existing video of Anne Frank, she appears for only a few seconds, and it’s been on YouTube for several years. But I didn’t know of it, and reader Michael called it to my attention.
The video notes say this:
July 22 1941. The girl next door is getting married. Anne Frank is leaning out of the window of her house in Amsterdam to get a good look at the bride and groom. It is the only time Anne Frank has ever been captured on film. At the time of her wedding, the bride lived on the second floor at Merwedeplein 39. The Frank family lived at number 37, also on the second floor. The Anne Frank House can offer you this film footage thanks to the cooperation of the couple.
If you’re in Amsterdam, don’t miss a vist to her house.
She would have been 84 yesterday / today [b. 12th June 1929]
I saw that snip of video a year or two ago. It is so sweet and poignant. If only…
I hadn’t seen this before either. Seeing her in such banality is so sad.
Anne Frank died in March 1945 at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Nazi Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945.
Or if your Justin Bieber, shamelessly plug your music.
you’re*
“Or if your Justin Bieber, shamelessly plug you’re music”? I’m not sure that’s an improvement. 🙂
“Or if your Justin Bieber, shamelessly plug you’re music”? I’m not sure that’s an improvement. 🙂
em, aspid, you are the one with your foot in your mouth ! The correction by Janie was for the FIRST ‘your’ in the sentence!
Says who? Janie’s correction is ambiguous.
Implicit it may be, but a blind newt could determine the obvious correct correction.
I think you know this already.
So, in ambiguous cases I am obliged to choose the -charitable- interpretation?
What’s the fun in that?
Stop repeating yourself using other words.
If injustice and suffering can move us, so can acts of courage and principle. Anne Frank’s Holland was of strategic importance and seized early on by the Nazis as they marched against France. Denmark, on the other hand, bent politically and cooperated economically with the Germans, but was not actually occupied by the Nazis until late in the war. When in the fall of 1943 the Danes discovered that Hitler planned to invade and imprison Danish Jews, the Danish people in the span of a few days got practically the entire Jewish population safely to neutral Sweden. Those few unable to escape mostly survived in concentration camps until the end of the war, helped by gifts sent from Denmark. Physicist Niels Bohr, en route to the US, pressured Stockholm to receive Jews seeking asylum. Bohr’s mother was Jewish. Hitler’s original plan was revealed to the Danish leadership by a Nazi diplomat Georg Duckwitz. Putting it all together, overall, 99% of Danish Jews survived WWII.
Details are given by Wikipedia “Rescue of the Danish Jews”. It is a story of solidarity that should be more widely known.
I didn’t know this; thanks.
I watched the “Diary of Anne Frank” movie again on Netflix this evening–almost too much to handle.
I also didn’t know this. Thanks. What a hero of the Jewish people.
I lament the fact that today’s scientists and Nobel laureates appear to have so little political leverage by comparison. From a cynical perspective, it seems the average hedge fund billionaire achieves more political influence than initiatives endorsed by scores of Nobel laureates.
The so called “Nazi diplomat” Georg von Duckwitz is honoured as a “Righteous among Nations” at Yad Vashem.
On his own initiative he raised the topic of Jewish refugees in talks with the Swedish officials and asked to grant them asylum in Sweden.
http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206623.pdf
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Ferdinand_Duckwitz
The rescue of Danish Jews is a remarkable story and the help of the majority of the Danish population (as well as the Swedish authorities) was a big part of it, but it has to be remembered that overall it was a small scale operation. There were relatively few Jews living in Denmark before the war. The Jewish population of the Netherlands was approximately 20-fold larger than that of Denmark and thus presented a whole different set of issues, both to the Nazis and to the people who tried to save the Jews.
Good point. It seems improbable that Sweden could have done much for the Netherlands even if the opportunity had arisen. Holland has always (since 1500, at least) been a safe haven for religious refugees and cannot as a society be faulted. Nazi control there and in Norway prevented much effective opposition to Antisemitism. In other countries — especially conservative rural regions — Nazi racial policy seems to have been almost welcomed. Sad, sad.
@ W. Benson:
Your chronology is a bit wrong.
In 1500 the Eighty Year’s war in the Netherlands (1568–1648), fueled by religious zeal and accompanied with much bloodshed, was still to come.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%27_War
You are, of course, correct. It was the mid to late 1500s before practicing Jews, outlawed by Christian society most elsewhere in Europe, received safeguards in the Netherlands.
Reblogged this on Mark Solock Blog.
I had not seen this remarkable video. Thank you. Touching.
I agree completely that her story and the museum is important to see but as a historian of this topic in history I must plead with everyone to also go visit two very important sites in the Netherlands; Westerbrook Transit Camp and the “Vught Conecentration Camp.” You can’t understand the Final Solution and the slaughter of western Jews like Frank without understanding the transit camps.
Very important history that gets overshadowed by Franks (still very important story) diary.
Of the seven others hiding with Anne, the only one who survived the war was her father, Otto, who died in 1980.
Your post brings to mind Rebecca Goldstein’s focus on mattering, that we need to feel that we matter to others. It is sad that many times, we are only able to show that people matter AFTER cruel injustice is committed.
Despite my beef with Uncle Eric, I know that he gets this aspect regarding society. I suspect his emotional affinity to such a perspective probably was the reason that the priesthood appealed to him, and why he sometimes still acts like one. 🙂
Reblogged this on Episyllogism: philosophy and the arts and commented:
Her story still resonates.
At one point in the house in Amsterdam are preserved the pencil marks on the wall where Otto recorded the height of his children as the years went by. Of everything there, that was the thing that affected me most, probably because I can well remember my own father doing the same thing in our house.
Reblogged this on Sarvodaya and commented:
She was obstructed and visible for only a few seconds, but it was still worth it for me.
I visited the house/museum about 10 years ago. There was a window in the back attic that looked out to the roofs of neighboring house. It had little view of the sky.
Anne Frank wrote this:
June 13, 1944
It’s not just my imagination — looking at the sky, the clouds, the moon and the stars really does make me feel calm and hopeful. It’s much better medicine than valerian or bromide. Nature makes me feel humble and ready to face every blow with courage!
Jerry
This post brings back poignant memories. I visited Bergen-Belsen concentration camp about 8 years ago. The visitors centre, museum displays and video footage was arresting enough…until I walked outside.
Walking among the many headstones, I eventually came upon one, and the words that met my eyes nearly floored me. Vaguely knowing the Anne Frank story and the gravity of it, but not having any notion about where she was buried at all (I mean, anywhere on the planet), I wept as I stood there, dumbfounded.
Here is what did it…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anne_frank_memorial_bergen_belsen.jpg
Indeed, I weep now.
It’s not the house they holed up in so why is it Anne?
Strange question. Because at the time that this film was shot THAT is where the Franks lived. They lived on the 2nd floor of # 37 Merwedeplein from Dec ’33 until Jul 6th ’42. Then they went into hiding on the Prinsengracht which is now the Anne Frank House Museum.
It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so
absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of
everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
—Anne Frank
There is a film (in Dutch and some German) by Dutch director Paul Verhoeven (yes, that Paul Verhoeven) called Black Book which paints a more realistic picture of the Netherlands during the war. (This was perhaps a personal response to his own much earlier film The Soldier of Orange which painted a jingoistic “all Dutch are heroes” picture.)