Anne Frank Holocaust Books and YouTube
It probably is no coincidence that I stumbled upon a new book in the library, written by a woman from her own diaries kept during World War II, on the same day that footage of Anne Frank was released on YouTube. I’ve got to hand it to those librarians. They’re on top of it.
Video of Anne Frank Surfaces on YouTube
The only existing film footage of Anne Frank has been uploaded to YouTube by the Anne Frank House. The Amsterdam museum is hoping to bring attention to Anne’s story and diaries and reach a new generation who may be unfamiliar with her story.
I felt compelled to check this new book out. I’ve never read the diary of Anne Frank. In my high school the regular classes had one reading list, which included it. But the AP classes had a different reading list, which did not include it. It seems odd that in other school systems everybody reads it; and it occasionally becomes a topic of conversation among adults because nearly everybody has read it. And yet I have not.
But I didn’t check it out. I couldn’t do it. I read three paragraphs about Nazis and I nearly cried in the library, which is just pathetic. Usually, I can at least get home in an academic frame of mind before I freak out and can’t read something that is tragic, but that I feel I should read for historical value.
Such is the baggage of spending a lifetime with survivors of WWII. And I’m sure my family, being middle class Catholics had it very well compared to Anne Frank. Still, three paragraphs and all the people I knew who had survived the war as children (but elderly by the time I came along) were spinning in my head, in this diary, as it’s characters, suffering.
Ugh.
Instead I came home, and watched Law and Order SVU after dinner. Like that’s so much less brutal than the diary of – not Anne Frank but a suffering little Polish girl, except she survived to write the book decades later.
It really would be better if I could remember the names of things. Yesterday I couldn’t remember the name of the attorney talking about David Letterman. Now I can’t remember the book title. Over a book that I could have sobbed over!
Isn’t it more important to remember how things make you feel than the names of things? It’s hard to focus on so much pain. But if it bothers you, maybe you can do some memory exercises. I used to try to remember which undies I was wearing (you see, I’m not always serious).
Have you seen the movie? It might be easier to watch then to try and read. But it’s an emotional ride either way…even if you didn’t have family anywhere near Europe at the time.
.-= Marne´s last blog ..Workout going well… =-.
I really didn’t get the Anne Frank diary. I mean, I get it, but the actual book? “Oh, you’re in an attic and you’re bored and you have to be quiet during the day?” Great, where are the Cliff’s notes? I was so bored and I have a sick fascination with the Holocaust… and SVU, and serial killers and forensic pathology, never mind. But my Grandaddy “spent his time in an airplane hangar drinking cokes and fixing planes” during WWII. I had a great uncle at Normandy, but he refused to talk about it.
Laura, I have an uncanny ability to remember which underwear I had on, but not much else unfortunately.
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