Anne Frank

Anne Frank's diary is on my list of 50 books to read this year as one of the rereads. I read it back in junior high and didn't remember much of it. Really, I'm glad I don't have a good memory of the classics I read in school, because when I reread them now I get so much more out of them then I did back then. This was no exception.

When I started reading it, I could just not get into it. Anne was such a typical teenager, and the diary seemed like pure fluff. And truthfully, it kind of was at first. However, due I'm sure to her atypical experience in hiding, she underwent transformations making her as or more mature than most adults out there today. One thing that she learned (through experience) before I learned it (through schooling) is this:

"Oh, it's sad, very sad that the old adage has been confirmed for the umpteenth time: "What one Christian does is his own responsibility, what one Jew does reflects on all Jews.""

It took me taking a class entitles Gender and Other Contemporary Issues and reading about the unfairness of one minority person being seen as a representative for their race, religion or ethnicity. Another sign of her maturity is found in this quote:

"It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise withinn 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."

It was so sad to learn what happened to the Frank family. Now that I have a child, I cannot imagine being torn apart to different concentration camps and actually surviving your wife and both of your children as her father did.