Anne Frank

Anne Frank s Diary, appearing first in Dutch as “HET ACHTERHUIS: DAGBOEKBRIEVEN 12 JUNI 1942-1 AUGUSTUS 1944” and later in English as “The Diary of a Young Girl,” is a work which continues to hold its place at the top of many literary lists: the most famous diary of modern times, the most famous work by a teenager, most famous work on the Holocaust, most famous 20th Century work by a Jew, etc. Primo Levi suggested that Anne Frank is frequently identified as a single representative of the millions of people who suffered and died as she did because “One single Anne Frank moves us more than the countless others who suffered just as she did but whose faces have remained in the shadows. Perhaps it is better that way; if we were capable of taking in all the suffering of all those people, we would not be able to live.” Otto Frank, Anne s father spent the remainder of his life after the publication of the Diary as custodian of his daughter’s legacy, saying, “It’s a strange role. In the normal family relationship, it is the child of the famous parent who has the honour and the burden of continuing the task. In my case the role is reversed.” He recalled his publisher’s explaining why he thought the diary has been so widely read, with the comment, “he said that the diary encompasses so many areas of life that each reader can find something that moves him personally.” Simon Wiesenthal expressed a similar sentiment when he said that the diary had raised more widespread awareness of the Holocaust than had been achieved during the Nuremberg Trials, because “people identified with this child. This was the impact of the Holocaust, this was a family like my family, like your family and so you could understand this” (Wikipedia, 2012). This edition comprised a commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the death of Anne Frank.