Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife

As a teen, like so many others, I was introduced to The Holocaust through Anne's diary.  Francine Prose's Anne Frank:  The Book, The Life, The Afterlife introduced me to an entirely different Anne.  Anne, the author. 

Through Prose's work I discovered new facts.  For instance, Anne rewrote parts of her diary in the months before she and her fellow annex-mates were captured.  Spurred by directive of the Dutch government that memories of this awful time should be documented, Anne begins to rewrite parts of her diary.  I was amazed to see her transformation as a writer... as the author she always wanted to be.

Interesting, too, were the many lawsuits surrounding the penning of a stage play and a movie.  The politics surrounding this endeavor were shocking to me.  The facts that the play came across as too sad, too Jewish or too depressing are so funny to me.  By definition, that is what The Holocaust is.  But, sad, depressing and Jewish apparently wouldn't sell.  Coupled with the issues of making Anne's diary universally appealing were the claims that her whole diary was just created by money-hungry Jews. 

Unfortunately the claims by Holocaust deniers that the diary was fiction, were not surprising to me.  One would think that the mountains of evidence to support the annihilation of 6 million Jews and millions of others would be enough.  It's amazing how facts can be twisted to support anyone's insane view of history. 

Anne Frank:  The Book, The Life, The Afterlife is a beautiful tribute to an amazing young girl.  Prose's book gave me the opportunity to learn even more about Anne and her truly amazing ability to convey a story.