Anne Frank
I said in the piece on Robert Fisk, that the next time I returned to Amsterdam, I would visit the Anne Frank House. Strangely later I went over the library at the Hotel Ambassade, where I saw a signed book by Fisk. It was one of many hundreds, by lots of famous authors!
I first visited the Anne Frank House in 1968 on my honeymoon. This was my second or possibly my third, as I can’t be sure that we didn’t visit, when we came to Amsterdam with the children around 1980. It was very different then and a much smaller museum without the new building to the right as you face the original house. This was added in 1999.
Perhaps, the building has lost some of its impact. When it was just the house it was smaller and this added to the claustrophobia, that Anne and her family must have suffered. But there is now a lot more information.
As I said in the original post, “when we forget the story of Anne and the diary, then we will probably have lost our humanity.”
Robert Fisk
There are few writers in the modern world of newspapers to rival Robert Fisk.
His piece today in The Independent on Lebanon, the holocaust, Anne Frank and the relationship between Israel and its enemies is a gem.
Read it!
Anne has always had a strong place in my heart. Whether it is because I have a small amount of Jewish ancestry or just because I hate injustice so much I do not know. Here’s what I wrote after a visit to Amsterdam in April 2008.
Everywhere in Amsterdam, there are posters of Anne Frank.
Not exactly Anne Frank, The Musical, as I really don’t think that would be the ideal work, but a symphonic tribute is being performed in Amsterdam based on her life and the famous diary.
It is quite right, that a little Jewish girl, her family and her diary caught up in the tragic events of the Second World War still hold the world in their thrall.
Her diary has now been translated into fifty-five languages and has sold over 20 million copies.
When we forget the story of Anne and the diary, then we will probably have lost our humanity.
As I write this book Cyclone Nargis has just devastated Burma or as the dictators prefer, Myanmar. Those dictators are ignoring offers of help from outside preferring to distribute the aid themselves, as letting others in might undermine their cruel regime, with thoughts of freedom and full stomachs.
Having read Wages of Destruction, by Adam Tooze, a book which describes the economic methods of Nazi Germany, I feel Hitler would be proud of their actions.
Because of the festivities the Anne Frank House was closed.
But next time I return to Amsterdam, I shall visit.
The festivities I spoke of, were the Queen’s birthday celebrations.
The Anonymous Widower 