Ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality … Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.
Anne Frank
As a college history major, I feel confident saying that the Holocaust is the worst thing that has ever happened. It isn’t about the numbers; many more people have been killed in other ways. But what makes this particular event so exceptionally egregious is the intentionality of the act—the willingness of a nation to exterminate an entire race of people, and how close they came to actually achieving it. This wasn’t an act of God; this wasn’t a tsunami or the Black Plague. This was EVIL writ large, and we have never seen anything like it before or since.
The Diary of Anne Frank or The Diary of a Young Girl humanizes this unparalleled tragedy in a way that historians like Laurence Rees—important as they are to our understanding of history—fail to capture. Mind you, this is neither a biography nor a memoir, but a historical artifact, a snapshot of events as they play out day by day in 1940s, Nazi-occupied Holland. While Anne dreamed of becoming a writer and showed a considerable talent for it even at fourteen, her diary was not meant for publication. (Which is why I will not be leaving a review).
Still, Anne expressed a desire to share her story with the world, which is one reason her diary was released without her direct consent by her father, Otto, the only person in her family, among her mother and sister, to survive the Holocaust. Otto believed his daughter’s experience, however intimate, needed to be heard by the world. And in our current timeline, when dictators are on the rise here and abroad, and the very concept of empathy is under attack, and the demon of racism rears its ugly head again, the story of a young Jewish girl in hiding, murdered by the Nazis, is one we must never forget.
Because this is such a sensitive topic, I feel the best person to express Anne’s thoughts is Anne herself. So I leave you with the passages from her diary I found most poignant.
Also, be sure to check out the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust website to learn more about Anne Frank’s life.
◦ The sick, the elderly, children, babies, and pregnant women—all are marched to their death.
◦ All we can do is wait, as calmly as possible, for it to end. Jews and Christians alike are waiting, the whole world is waiting, and many are waiting for death.
◦ We’ve been told of children searching forlornly in the smoldering ruins for their dead parents. It still makes me shiver to think of the dull, distant drone that signified the approaching destruction.
◦ I wander from room to room, climb up and down the stairs, and feel like a songbird whose wings have been ripped off and who keeps hurling itself against the bars of its dark cage.
◦ I don’t want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death! And that’s why I’m so grateful to God for having given me this gift … When I write, I can shake off all my cares.
◦ If God lets me live, I’ll achieve more than Mother ever did, I’ll make my voice heard, I’ll go out into the world and work for mankind!
The Art of Storytelling 
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