ANNE FRANK REMEMBERED

 

FOUR STARS – Powerful Documentary

 

 

       The greatest evil humankind has ever conceived is the murder of a whole race of people. 

       Although historical records show this evil to exist in virtually every known society throughout history, the one which has become the symbol for all such holocausts is the Nazi mass murder of European Jews.

       Systematic and relentless, with an obsessive attention to detail and efficiency, the Nazi evil is so repulsive that it can hardly be examined.   A protective shroud of denial descends upon even those who experienced its atrocity, let alone those of us who encounter it only through the camera’s lens.

       This fact, that we so easily deny our capacity to do such evil, is one of the reasons that “Anne Frank Remembered” is an important film.

       Amateurish in its presentation and simple in its message, this documentary gently opens our minds and hearts to examine the evil of which humanity is capable through the life and words of a 14 year old girl.

       Anne Frank was the daughter of a German father and a Jewish mother.  When Hitler was elected to power, Anne’s father Otto moved his two daughters and his wife to Holland.  There, in hopeful preparation, he built a hiding place for his family.  For two years, Anne, her sister and her parents hid with four other people from the destructive hatred of the Nazi.

       It was in that hiding place that Anne Frank kept her diary.  We walk with Anne through the experiences as common as passing through puberty  and as uncommon as being  hidden for years in three small rooms atop a Dutch factory.

       As we hear her friends and family speak of Anne, we hear descriptions that could be made of any young girl.  Mischievous, amorous, full of life and hope, Anne could be any of us innocently caught in a web of racist hatred and evil.

       Though her life is surrounded by heroic persons who risked their own lives and families to protect her, Anne’s life was unable to be saved. 

       Betrayed by an anonymous phone call, and imprisoned in the death camps of the Third Reich, she survived until only one month before her concentration camp was liberated.  Having given up hope due to the disease and death of her sister and the supposed deaths of her parents, Anne died of a broken heart and body at age 15.

       What is perhaps most disturbing about the evil of such holocausts is not only the numbing denial necessary for the survival of the victims, but also the arrogant delusions and rationalizations of the perpetrators. 

       In a twisted speech on October 4, 1943, Himmler said this to his SS officers overseeing the camps:  “Most of you know what it means to have 100 corpses lying side by side, or 500 or 1000.  To have endured this and to have REMAINED DECENT MEN IN THE PROCESS - except for exceptions caused by human weakness - this had made us hard as nails.  This is a glorious page in our history that has never been written and never will be...” 

       Throughout the Bible the message God gives to us is that evil has a delusional quality which mesmerizes both victims and perpetrators. 

       Like deer caught in a headlight, or a child caught in a father’s abuse, or a victim caught in a racist’s scheme, the evil continues because both are somehow caught in a mutually destructive dance.

       One testimony given by a friend of Anne’s, tells how the Nazi’s, when they conquered Holland, didn’t impose oppressive rules immediately.  They slowly clamped down in such simple ways as not allowing Jewish people to go to public parks, and then to public concerts, and then to public schools.

       At each stage of the loss of freedom, the Jewish people convinced themselves that they could live without the newly forbidden right.

       This slowly enveloping pattern of evil is a message which cannot be denied.

       Evil seldom shows itself at first in its ultimate horror.  It creeps upon a person and a society in almost imperceptible increments until, one day, we awaken to find ourselves compromised and enslaved.

       Anne Frank prayed that God would enable her to live a life which would be remembered long after she died.   Though remarkably answered, the message she left us is one we ignore only at our peril.

       We cannot deny our own capacity for evil.  Instead, we must pray to God that He will give us a changed heart and a courageous spirit to stand up to evil, whether it is evidenced within us, imposed by our fellow citizens, or perpetrated by our government.

        Without such confession and assistance from God the holocausts will undoubtedly continue.       

 

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