Shared Photo: Anne Frank

Question

In this posting of one of the world's best known people, I wanted to share this family photo of Anne Frank with the community, and especially those who also remember her for their entire, long lives. (In the photo: Location: unknown. Date: unknown.) 

Click here for the image details page.

In reading about her here on Wikitree, I've learned more of her life than ever before. The photo shows us her intrinsic JOY. I could not bring myself to read her "Day Book," as some few will understand. This photo was most likely to have been taken before her family sought refuge and a safe, hidden place to bide time. I hope that they had hope for being outside again, at least till the Nazis were alerted to their supposedly secure nest. As a child, I saw her as a hero for keeping alive her spirits in such self-enforced imprisonment.  What do you remember and how do you think she managed, day to day?

Comments

Went to a play about the Anne Frank. Her birth year was mentioned and two people who watched the play were born the same year. So, Anne Frank might have been alive today if it were not for her very unfortunate situation.

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Frank, Yes, I found out that many years, maybe 20, ago. I, like millions, loved her for afar, but she was born after I was. (And I am still alive.)

I'm happy to know that at least one other of us likes live theater. Thanks for that too.

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Roberta,

Thank you so much for sharing such a touching photo of a young women that has touched the lives of most of the world.

You are so fortunate to have her as one of your ancestors.

Taylor

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Dear Taylor,

I thank you for recognising my sincere honoring of Anne Frank.

I've honored her all my life because of seeing photos and video of the internment in camps just as they opened them up to video cameras. My compassion is huge.

In these later years thru a DNA test I found I'm 21% Jewish, but, alas, I am not a relative even figuratively of the blessed Anne Frank. She is a most revered person in my survey of our world's general occupants ManUnkind over the last 55 years.

We must strive daily to be the best human being we can be. (I fear So many just can't do that or choose not to.)

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It was good that her father was able to get back to where Anne's diary was left, so that her writing can be known to many people.

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Better than "good", Frank. That diary is so full of compassion and her book's written while Jews were generally demonized and stigmatized, whether by Germans or Poles (and the peoples of any nation, everywhere, continuing to a lesser degree only today. Ann's diary is more than one girl's heartfelt thoughts. It opened up the closed hearts of millions in the world to the well-taught values and compassion of the Jews.

People have asked: Why were Jews so mistreated, so stigmatized? After thinking about it most of my life, and listening to many others, its central energy seems to come from people's need to have a scapegoat, a group they can name, disparage, and, judge, as, for instance, the treatment of Negros as slaves and, later, scapegoats that routinely ended in hangings, drownings, tar-and-featherings.

Last night on PBS, I think the PBSNewsHour, one of the segments focused on the need of men to do war. War, the interviewer said, is an intricately interwoven part of Civilization.

What a horrible thought. If it's in a book, as I vaguely recall, it's one we should all read, if it's readable.

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Sometimes if you are not a blood relative of someone, you can be connected through marriage, siblings or other similar persons.

I'm connected that way through to a number of people.

You may have a connection to Anne Frank even though you are not a blood relative.

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Oh, you are correct, Frank, but I only feel the connection. And because I do have Jewish ancestors, with names and faces (my cousin has a tree on ancestry.com), I am trying, futilely at this moment of oncoming summer in AZ, to figure out how to get my GedCom all clean and check for sources (her tree does not provide them). Her tree too does not lead me to my father's father Mr. Unknown Unknown in Hilse-40. It's full of detective story type leads, though. I hope to identify him while I have a lifetime.

But ftdna's FF auDNA test did lead me to my cousin's mother and uncle. (Samuel Philip Berman, her uncle, had a facial characteristic of the area below the nose and directly on and around the chin that was nearly identical with my father's ! !

Dad had died in 1984. You must imagine how thrilled I was to see this (third?) cousin when he, at age 90, picked me up at the airport. He died three years later. We emailed regularly.)

Answer 1

I've loved Anne Frank since I was a young girl. I loved reading her diary. She is so inspirational to me on so many levels!! RIP sweet Anne.

Comments

It would be so lovely if she could hear you. Thanks, Debbie Parsons, and all who feel similarly.

Answer 2

C'est Bon Magnifique ! Famous Image of Her ! ..

Comments

Jerry, Indeed, C'est Bon!

Answer 3

I remember how she was so grateful for her gifts. And when she would laugh at the married couple staying with the family.... Laughter is the best medicine. Bless it all!

Answer 4

I wanted to cry when i saw this photo, a look at that happy face, and then the realization of a life lost.  Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful girl with us.