I've read "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" when I was in high school, and found myself completely engrossed in her story, and also in the Broadway play of her life in the Secret Annexe.
However, I'm a little perplexed about how people have perceived her diary and of her as a person, seeing her as a little saint or having a message of hope for the world. I don't think that was the original intention of her diary. She wrote it mainly for herself, even though she did make some rigorous rewrites before the occupants of the Secret Annexe were betrayed, intending it to be published someday.
But I never saw her as a saint or as a messenger of hope...but as a very talented writer who could express her thoughts very well and very entertainingly in a diary. No doubt she was a very engaging writer, and she did possess an extraordinary talent with expressing herself fully with words. You really got to know her well through her diary. But the importance of her diary lies in the fact that it is a testament and an important historical document of the proof that the Holocaust did happen.
It also brought the tragedy of the Holocaust closer to home, to lose someone that we could put a familiar face and personality to, at such a young age...literally having had her young life ripped away from her and from the other occupants who were murdered in the Holocaust. It's a searing indictment of the Nazis systematic murder of over 6 million Jews, and that should not be forgotten.
But it's sad to me that her diary is being so misconstrued as anything more than that. When I look for hope, I have the Bible...the first most widely read non-fiction book in the world. God's Words in the Bible is eternal...but Anne's diary is a diary of a young girl under extraordinary circumstances, and that is it. She is not someone to be worshiped or idolized, because she was an ordinary girl with many flaws, who possessed incredible talent as a writer, and who died at age 15 from typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She was a victim of the Holocaust, and as this otherwise excellent documentary has so vividly testified, she was Hitler's most famous victim.
Besides the Anne Frank's story...the stories from her family members and friends and survivors of the Holocaust were engrossing, vivid and powerful. I especially enjoyed Miep Gies' testimony, and marvel that she is still strong and alive today. Hannah Goslar's testimony was also very interesting. And I also liked hearing from Otto Frank. But I also agree that the moving picture of the young girl with the dark hair and the familiar big eyes at the end was particularly memorable.
Another thing about the Holocaust that I kind of disagree with the documentary...is that I don't believe it was just a matter of discrimination...but rather something deeper and more profound, and that was just an act of pure evil. Pure evil. Nothing else but pure evil.
Excellent documentary of Anne Frank and of the Holocaust that should be watched.
