The Writings of Anne Frank: Narrative History Personified - Book Report/Review Example

The Writings of Anne Frank: Narrative History Personified Marjorie N Allen The Writings of Anne Frank: Narrative History Personified How much of our knowledge of a specific era can be credited to the writings of Anne Frank in the diary she left behind The diary covers the years from 1942 to 1944, and during all that time Anne never left the small hiding place that housed her and her family. And the diary ends before she actually is taken to a concentration camp. Unless her story becomes a nucleus around which the studies regarding her life and death over the last 60 years have been built, the actual value of what she wrote as a barometer of the past must necessarily be diminished. Only in the context of debate and discussion can Anne Frank's diary of her days in hiding in the Netherlands be made part of history. The fact that she writes about her day-to-day existence and the impact of what is happening around her, as well as her personal thoughts about her own adolescent growth, makes her an important presence at a specific time in world history. Her situation was not unique. Other families found it necessary to hide from the Gestapo. What is unique is the record she left behind. Every analysis, including this essay, that explores what Anne was attempting to accomplish by writing it gives credibility to the premise that Anne Frank's diary is indeed a valid historical document. Over the years, several versions of her diary have been published, in original Dutch, in various translations, and in critical editions. The first question therefore is which version of her diary should be the nucleus of this paper The most popular version, the one that is most familiar is Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (1952) translated [into English] and published in England and the United States eight years after her death (Allen, 1996). The book's reception as "an edifying, universal message to humanity contributed to its classification as adolescent literature" (Brenner, 1996). Whether the value of her experiences in the context of a children's book must be seen as a less credible narrative of history is a debate that need not be part of this paper except to say that this particular version is a place to start, and the fact that it is categorized as a children's book makes it not only more worthwhile but expands the discussion in the book's usage as an educational tool. As a piece of history, Anne's story speaks to all future generations and the way it is presented to children is an important factor. Therefore, unless otherwise noted, this study will refer to the 1952 version, which is used in most schools, as well as the "Special Anniversary" edition published by New York publisher BDD in 1995, which contains heretofore deleted passages, and explore the ways in which a narrative history can be or has been constructed around these versions. The book was first published in Dutch in 1947 as Het Achterhuis (The Secret House), and although it caused a stir as a personal study of a victim of the Holocaust, it didn't become overly popular in its original format. Five years later, in 1952, the first translated versions of the diary in English, German and French, were received as a "pure, innocent, completely unblemished" portrait of a young girl (Bernard 2000). The American version became an immediate success and the book thereafter became a symbol of youthful idealism. Unfortunately, if seen only in that context, any documentation her writings may have brought to that time in history has little value. However, over time, the book has continued to gain in popularity. Various versions of the diary began to appear, as well as a play and a movie, which made the diary visual, and a growing controversy began to surround it, questioning its validity, questioning the true content of the story, questioning its educational value. From 1952 until 1995, materials began to accumulate, and in this electronic age we live in, the original book has been translated into well over 50 different languages, and discussions of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (1952) offer so much commentary that it would take a lifetime to accumulate and evaluate it. The title alone--Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl--indicates that this book might well be a work of fiction. In the title, there is no mention of the circumstances in which Anne Frank is embroiled, no mention of the danger she is in, or what her final fate must be. In fact, the book itself ends while she is still in hiding, and the fact that she will eventually end up in Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp and die there is known only because that information became available from her father after the war. Certainly, Anne didn't know her ultimate fate, even though she did anticipate it. The original version--on which the 1952 version was based-- was edited by her father, the only member of the family who survived the Holocaust, and that fact creates a different view of the historical importance of the book. (BBC On This Day 1952). It would seem that the original diary, written in Dutch, and not yet edited by Anne (who did go back and edit her diary in 1944) should be made available as a piece of history and should be compared to her own edited version, her father's edited version, and the 1995 version, which contains previously omitted sections and claims to be the ultimate true version. Looking into this comparison could initiate a whole new essay, perhaps a study of the literary truth of diaries. According to Robert Faurisson (2000), noted Holocaust revisionist scholar, Anne Frank's journal was a "doctored" text, but the so-called "critical edition" published by a Netherlands government agency in 1986 did very little to repudiate Faurisson's concerns: Above all . . . the authors of this 'scholarly' edition, by insisting so much on the study of handwriting, have abdicated what ought to have been their main task: the examination of the content. They should have made it their first task to provide the reader with evidence that, contrary to what I had written, the "diary" account actually does mirror a physical or material reality (p. 3). The main question perhaps should be how much of the original text was the fiction of an adolescent girl and how much was fact What does the text tell us about that time in world history Can the diary be categorized as a historical document or must it be relegated to the literary field only The truth of the matter is that Anne Frank was a real person living during an explosive time in history and her observations, whether embellished or not, do have validity and deserve to be part of history. We hear her voice in what she writes; and even if her father, Otto Frank, edits her writing and leaves out certain passages that have since been restored, her voice comes through loud and clear. Anne Frank has been seen as a symbol of prevailing humanism as well as a universal victim. But she was also a precocious young Jewish woman who questioned the situation she was in. She explored the physical dangers of her existence and what could happen to the group if they were revealed to the Nazis, as well as her own burgeoning adolescence. Writer Jan Romein believed it was Anne's ultimate fate, her annihilation as an artist that makes her story so important ("A Child's Voice, Het Parool, 1946). That is true of course, but even more important in the context of historical content is Anne Frank's identity as a Jew in an occupied country during World War II and the fate of millions in the Holocaust, Anne Frank's fate notwithstanding. She was well aware of the "hardship of war which . . .intensifie[d] incomparably for the Jewish victims." (Brenner, 1996) and made every effort to describe for her readers circumstances difficult, if not impossible, to describe. This particular aspect has unfortunately been downplayed in the education field, especially in American schools, probably due in part to the fact that the 1952 edition of the book was based on the edited version submitted by her father, which left out those portions of the diary he felt didn't need to be included and by the propensity of American educational publishers to dismiss any kind of controversy. In keeping with Anne's desire to be a professional writer, there is little doubt that she would want to have a say in what was or was not included in her manuscript. And if she knew it had become a historical document, she definitely would want everything included. She admitted to her own shortcomings and would not want to be seen as an idealistic icon for young people. In the 1950s the American education system cultivated the image of a complacent, idyllic nation, labeled by historians as the "Bland Decade" (Allen, 1996), and in this setting Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl became a symbol of optimism in the face of the tragedy of war. At this time in history, the Holocaust had not become universally known, and Anne Frank was seen as a symbol of optimism for the future. One of the most quoted passages from the 1952 version was included in Catherine A. Bernard's article (2000) on Anne Frank as an inspirational victim: It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all 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. Certain subjects were taboo in American children's books, for instance, sex, violence, and death, and Otto Frank, Anne's father, had taken out Anne's references to her developing sexuality, and though Anne did refer to the rumors that people were being killed, either because they were Jewish or because they were harboring Jews, she was unaware of all the specific details of these atrocities. Her father also edited out sections in which she talked about her difficult relationship with family members. In addition, translated books tend to be "Americanized," with unacceptable references deleted and language changed to make them more accessible to students. Because of this whitewashing of the diary, the book quickly became an acceptable reference to the Holocaust in American schools. It is questionable how much true knowledge of the past can be learned from the diaries of Anne Frank, but what can be learned is the variety of possible truths that make up narrative history. While children in America, England, and France were reading the translation of the book edited by Otto Frank, historians and educators began a commentary on Anne Frank's writings that indicated not one but three versions of the original diary: It must be understood that the diary students are reading in the schools is not a direct copy of the dairy Anne wrote. There are three different versions of the diary. The first was the actual diary itself, version A, the second was a rewrite in which Anne edited and rewrote her first diary, version B, and the third was the edited version Otto Frank allowed to be published, version C. (Landfried, 2002) When the 1995 version was published with Otto Frank's deleted passages reinstated (which might be considered version D), Anne's words created a darker book, one that truly made the Holocaust a reality, even if she didn't know the actual details, and offered her unusual insight into world affairs. It was obvious that Anne Frank was capable of profound thinking, discussing an injustice to women in this passage from the book contained in Bernard's article: "In many countries, women have been granted equal rights; many people, particularly women, but also men, now realize for how long this state of affairs has been wrong, and modern women demand the right of complete independence!" (2000). Considering that Anne Frank was born in 1929 and never really had an opportunity to mature as a woman, dying just before her 16th birthday, it is quite remarkable that she shows such a mature outlook on a subject that is still under debate in the world. Anne's Diary assuredly opens to door for a discussion on World War II and the Holocaust. For a serious historian, it would be necessary to also study the circumstances that led to World War II in the first place as well as the way in which culture evolved from the time Anne was born in 1929 until her death in 1944. Over the years, with books, television, and movies exploring that time in history, Anne Frank must necessarily be a part of the entire exploration, and the 1995 version of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl set against earlier versions must be considered a valid historical document. References Allen, Marjorie N. (1996) 100 Years of Children's Books in America: Decade By Decade, New York: Facts On File, Inc., p. 145. Bernard, Catherine A. (February 2000) "Anne Frank: the Cultivation of the Inspirational Victim," Other Voices 2.1. www.othervoices.org/2.1/bernard/womanwriting.html Retrieved December 23, 2005. Brenner, Rachel Feldhay. (1996) "Writing Herself Against History: Anne Frank's Self-Portrait as a Young Artist," Modern Judaism, 16.2, 105-134. Carr, E. H. (1961, 2nd ed. 1987) What is History Penguin. Evans, Richard J. (1997) In Defence of History, Granta. Faurisson, Robert. (2000) "The Diary of Anne Frank: Is it Genuine" The Journal for Historical Review, Vol. 19, No. 6, p. 2. http://www.ihr.org. Retrieved December 25, 2005. Guyver, Robert . (no date) "Philosophy and Traditions of Inquiry in the Great History Debate," The Philosopher, Vol. LXXXVI, No. 2. Munslow, Alon. (Autumn 2001) "What History Is," History in Focus, Issue 2. www.history.ac.uk/focus/whatishistory Retrieved 12/23/2005. Online only: http://newsbbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/30/newsid-3715000/3715435.stm. Retrieved 12/24/2005. Read More