Anne Frank: Reflections on Her Life and Legacy

by Hyman Aaron Enzer (Editor), Sandra Solotaroff-Enzer (Editor)

Of all the memoirs that convey the human devastation of Hitler's Final Solution, Anne Frank's "The Diary of a Young Girl" is by far the most popular and influential. Since its publication in Holland in 1947, the diary has been translated into more than fifty languages, reprinted in millions of copies, and transformed into plays, films, teaching guides, and political tracts. These contending interpretations all serve to illuminate as well as obscure the "real" Anne Frank. This book is the most complete anthology of the disparate facts and interpretations of Anne Frank. Here in a concise, readable volume are two dozen articles and memoirs most relevant for understanding her life, death, and legacy. They assess Anne Frank's qualities as a writer and scrutinize the proliferating controversies about her reputation, especially the way the stage and film versions have altered perceptions of her life and her diary. They also consider how interpreters of Jewish experience in World War II have defined Anne Frank's significance for memorializing the Holocaust. Anne Frank's memoir of eight Jews hiding in an attic for two years continues to resonate as a haunting reminder of the promise of a generation that was almost completely snuffed out. Thrown into relief by the horrors she constantly feared and eventually suffered, the young girl's uninhibited observations and self-analysis retain their poignancy and power. Supplemented by a complete record of the diary's publishing history and an extensive bibliography and index, this book provides an intriguing glimpse at how fact, fiction, history, and legend are intertwined.

Genres: Holocaust

285 pages, Hardcover

First published December 20, 1999

Reviews

[Edwina Book Anaconda]

There is so much information crammed into this slim book that I have no idea how or where to even start writing a review. Some chapters I enjoyed and others, not so much.

A warning to future readers, the print is so incredibly small that after 10 pages I would have to lay the book aside because of eye strain causing a pounding headache.

[Meltha]

This is a collection of 31 essays on the diary and Anne Frank's other writings, its various incarnations in terms of different versions or scripts, the historical setting of the book, and interviews with people who either knew Anne Frank (Miep Gies, a neighbor, a school friend) or who were involved in the events after it (Simon Wiesenthal, etc.).

As is usual with critical theory, the opinions run the gamut from highly interesting to those who refer to "sentimentality" in the same way many people would refer to cyanide. What this volume does accomplish is placing together a fairly wide variety of criticism and historical background into one volume.

I would also warn that it is rather an exhausting read emotionally at times.

[Lisa]

Okay... didn't really finish. Some of it was interesting, and some just sounds like the elite "jumping on the A.F. bandwagon". It was a bad thing, the Holocaust, and she (Anne Frank) was a human being who did the best she could with the very bad hand she was dealt.

Hopefully we can all learn something from that... to avoid contributing to hatred and anger in the world and contribute/give to peaceful pursuits. That is the point of these studies, I would think... it's not a joy ride. Peace.