It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.
The German-Jewish girl who came to be known to the world as Anne Frank was born Annelies Marie Frank in Frankfurt on this day in 1929. Hidden with her family above a Dutch business in Amsterdam, she was betrayed to the Nazis and died at Bergen-Belsen in 1945. Her diaries were first published as Diary of a Young Girl in 1947 and they are the most profound and essential reading experience for a child. They contain wisdom far beyond the writer’s years. Anne’s father Otto spent decades publicising the book and his daughter’s thoughts, bringing her message to the world for a long time after her brutal murder by the Germans.
When you visit the house – long turned into a museum – you are struck by Anne’s love of movie stars – all those photos cut from newspapers, the people you’d expect and the passions of a teenager laid bare for all to see.
When Audrey Hepburn was offered the role in the film adaptation she felt too close to the situation to incarnate the iconic character (her father’s fascist proclivities likely contributed to that decision). In the end she was played by Millie Perkins. Anne would probably have been amazed to know that her story was made into films and TV series and that she herself would belong to kids’ galleries of their idols, for the most tragic of reasons.
I know what I want, I have a goal, an opinion, I have a religion and love. Let me be myself and then I am satisfied. I know that I’m a woman, a woman with inward strength and plenty of courage.
What is done cannot be undone, but one can prevent it happening again.
mondomovies 