holocaust – Site Title

The Diary of Anne Frank

There were other books but this one stood out from the rest to a girl who was running wild at the time and didn’t have a care in the world except to be a young girl and to live life to the fullest.

Then I got into books and this one, well, let’s just say it had me from the get go. I couldn’t put it down and I walked her path, the one she had walked so many years before. I lived her life through her words and I cried at the injustice of it all, and when she lost family members, I wept like it had happened to me. Her father was the only one to survive the Holocaust.

The story was about a 13-year-old Jewish girl who hid from the Nazis for two years during the occupation of the Netherlands. It was also about the resilience of the human spirit but more than that, it was about man’s inhumanity to man. The diary does a perfect job of capturing the constant terror they lived under being concealed in the “Secret Annex” above her father’s business. It must have been claustrophobic not to mention horrific living under the extreme silence that was required of them to keep from being exposed or arrested.

She wanted to be a writer and or a journalist, she would achieve that dream posthumously. Her father Otto Frank published the book in 1947 and it is now an enduring reminder of the resilience of the human nature and the dangers of prejudice.

The book made me see the world in a different light. I realized and saw firsthand from reading the book that evil was out there, it had the power to destroy and it brought home the fact that my little corner of the world was safe while there were others out there that required a certain mentality to survive and where “safety” was far from what it was from where I was.

I think, “The Diary of Anne Frank,” broadened my way of thinking and I started taking an interest in what was happening around the world and would later go on to write about human injustices, racism, and human rights issues.

That book was the stepping stone to a whole new world, not always of the good kind but it was needed and it changed a young girl’s way of thinking for the better.

Daily writing prompt

What’s a piece of media (book, movie, song) that changed how you see the world?

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Adolf Hitler

This unspectacular and seemingly nonchalant looking man kept the world captive for a long time. “He is widely regarded as a symbol of evil because of the crimes committed by the Nazi German regime under his leadership.” More than 11 million people were killed and the deaths were carried out in a very intentional manner. It was as if those lives lost did not matter at all. They were part of a purging process and it was all done in the name of ethnic cleansing or rather genocide. He is infamous not only for World War II and the Holocaust but also for the systematic persecution and the mass murder of Europe’s Jews.

Adolf Hitler was a slightly overweight man with piercing eyes and was evil to the core. “Hitler believed that Jews were destructive to the German ‘Aryan’ race, and did not have any place in Nazi Germany.” The Nazi idealogy is about degradation, extermination and dehumanizing certain groups of people based on their ethnicity and that is the OBJECTIVE. It is exactly why it is so dangerous.

This was and is the personification of evil. I met him, metaphorically, when as a young girl I started reading about Anne Frank and her struggles during Hitler’s reign. It was a reign of terror where families were wiped out and fear reigned supreme. Anne was a German-born Jewish girl and a victim of the Holocaust. She is one of the 1.5 million Jewish children who were murdered during the genocide. Anne became famous for keeping a diary of her experiences. She and her family went into hiding and stayed concealed at the back of a building on the Prinsengracht in Amsterdem, the Netherlands. Her writing kept me enthralled from start to finish and I lived her journey through her words. I read her story from the safe confines of my bedroom but every word transported me to where she had been and I knew that evil had a name and that it was Adolf Hitler.

What is the moral of Anne Frank?

It is “that all people have the right to live in freedom.”

Fast forward to today. We are living in a time where Nazi salutes, Nazi propaganda and Nazi rhetoric is viewed as nothing big. Those that believe in his ideology want the world to revert back to that time and place where “people” who did not belong in their concept of the “superior race” should be eradicated and or have their rights taken away.

If it will fly in a global society that is the question. We’ve come a long ways from one “evil” man controlling the narrative. We have a voice now and let’s use it to put evil in its place.

Daily writing prompt

Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?

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Three Impactful Books

I love books and as long as it had romance in it, I considered it a good read. Then I met these three and in some ways they did change my life.

The Thornbirds

I’ve written about this one before. It is a sweeping saga centered on the love between Meggie Cleary and Father Ralph de Bricassart, a priest who is torn between his love for the young Meggie and his faith. This bittersweet love affair has several themes but the most poignant is that of ambition, sacrifice and the consequences of sin. You can’t help but root for them but the relationship is doomed from the start.

The impact it had on me was incredible. Here was someone, Colleen McCullough, who wrote with such grace, beauty, expertise and had the power to take you on a journey until the very end. Her words had the power to touch something deep within and I wanted to be just like her!

Wuthering Heights

It was written by Emily Bronte and is a story that revolves around a troubled relationship between Heathcliff, who is adopted by the Earnshaw family and Catherine Earnshaw. However, Catherine marries Edgar Linton for social status which in turn drives Heathcliff to plot revenge against those who wronged him. An intriguing story of class differences and the destructive power of love. A toxic relationship that keeps you enthralled to the very end.

The impact it had on me was that “love” is a painful thing and it has many facets. I still feel that way.

The Diary of Anne Frank

This one was captivating, heart-wrenching and it chronicles man’s inhumanity to man. Anne Frank and her family hide from the Nazis in a “Secret Annex” above a shop in Amsterdam. She goes on to detail her daily life with others in the annex and of her fears and hope amid the war. However, after years in hiding, the family is captured by the Gestapo and sent to concentration camps. Her father, Otto Frank, will be the sole survivor.

The impact it had on me was mind-boggling. I lived her journey right to their capture and later cried when she along with her mother and sister died in the concentration camp. It is a powerful firsthand account of life in hiding and one young girl’s will to survive under unimaginable circumstances. It also taught me that life and people can be cruel.

Daily writing prompt

List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?