Recently in Anna Scanlon - Remember.org Guest Editor Category

Technically, this is old news. However, it was just brought to my attention, so I'm just now blogging about it.

If you follow what's going on in the world of Holocaust scholarship, or Young Adult literature (lucky for me, I follow both--so as Sheldon from Big Bang Theory would say, "Bazinga!") you'll know that every few years, uncensored passages from Anne Frank's diary pop up out of the ether. Her cousin, Buddy Elias, who is now her voice, will usually be interviewed by a periodical talking about how he likes it  or dislikes it and then everyone will forget about it for a while.

It's no secret that her father, Otto Frank, the one survivor of the Secret Annex, heavily edited her diary before publication. Not only did he take out much of the frank (no pun intended) sexual discourse, but he also removed negative passages about his marriage to his late wife. An unabridged edition of the book was published sometime during the 1990s by scholar Melissa Mueller, which, as far as I know, was totally unauthorized by the Anne Frank Foundation.

The controversy in Virginia seems to now be about a passage in which Anne looked at her vagina in a mirror and described it in detail in her diary. A parent of a 13-year-old was so appalled that this was in the school's library that she complained and so Culpepper Middle School took the book off of the shelf. In a media outlet, the librarian said she felt the content was inappropriate for the eighth grade and that it added nothing relevant for discussion.

Okay, let's back up a bit. I, for one, am not a fan of this passage being added to the book. However, the reasons I have are far less about my concern for a 13-year-old TEENAGER reading about what a vagina looks like and more about respect and privacy for the dead.

America is a prudish country, especially compared to those in Europe. When I lived in both France and Hungary, I was shocked by the casual attitudes toward sex (especially public displays of affection, which go beyond the occasional tongue slip in public and lean more to full body contact on the subway), and especially in Hungary, the lack of attention to dress codes in schools. I'm sure they would have this passage in their schools and it wouldn't be an issue.

Let's be honest. Anne Frank hid in the Secret Annex when she was 13-15, meaning she was the same age as many of her readers at Culpepper Middle School when she wrote this "disgusting" passage.  Many parents like to sit back and blame the media for their own inability to parent. Do they really think their child learning about human anatomy is going to scar them for life, turn them into sex fiends or get their daughters knocked up? I mean, it's this ridiculous Victorian attitude that makes us censor women's rights and shy away from frank discussions on teen pregnancy. An eighth grader is 13 or 14. In eighth grade, whether you're a boy or a girl, you should know what a vagina looks like. If you're a male, hopefully not by experience, but let's be honest: the vagina is part of the human body. Even though its function is mostly sexual, it is part of the body, just like the fingers, the toes or the eyes.

So, all I can say is, really Culpepper Middle School?

However, there is another larger issue at hand with this entry. I don't believe that after the fact it should be pulled from school shelves, but I do believe it shouldn't have been published in the first place. While no one can say what Anne would or wouldn't have wanted, I think it could be safer to assume that she might be mortified by this entry being broadcast to the world.

But then again, maybe she wouldn't be.

While it is impossible to say what Anne would have wanted, her father was undoubtedly very close to her. His judgment should have been respected, even if part of the reason he edited was to save face for himself. We know Anne was rewriting her diary for future publication, but it is unclear whether this passage was part of that.

All I can say is that if I wrote that entry when I was 14, I would probably not want the entire world to see it. But that is speaking from my own experience. And I am not Anne. 

But, if you're curious, you can see the original link, including passage, here. 

A few days ago, I wrote a research paper on historical fiction and the Holocaust for my PhD applications. I mostly discussed The Grey Zone, comparing it to its primary source and the play and film. But somehow the subject of Annexed came up--how it's a highly controversial take on Anne's life through a fictional lens. Told by Peter van Pels' point of view, the book discusses his time in the camps and what it was like to fall in love with and live with Anne Frank.

I walked into this book cautiously, even though I was excited to read it. I had read excerpts from it and loved the writing, but was prepared to hate it because of reviews that denounced the book for being too sexually explicit.

As noted in my research paper, the book was denounced by the guardians of Anne's diary because it was "racy". Supposedly, Dogar wrote a scene in which Anne and Peter had intercourse, but I must have missed that scene. All there seemed to be in the way of sex was some heavy petting and some fantasizing on his part. All I can say to that is he was a 15-18 year old boy trapped in a small space with two girls his age. Obviously, his mind is going to wander to that--so I don't understand the controversy over it, really. This may make it a book that you shouldn't give to your nine-year-old, but anyone who has passed into the realm of puberty can and would relate to his feelings.

I think the argument represents just how iconic these eight people have become--matyrs and symbols of the Holocaust. To some degree, they are almost treated like saints. They were just regular people who hold a very special place in history. And I guess some people don't like it to be tampered with and treat it almost like a Bible story. A fresh perspective is poo-pooed, even if it comes from accurate research.

I thought the book was, indeed, excellent. I hadn't cried over a book in a long time, but Dogar's book did just that. I guess because I've shied away from Anne's story because of its level of sainthood, I hadn't really looked at them as people. Dogar's portrayal of both Peter and Anne are just so human and heartbreaking. I haven't read Anne's diary in a long time, but from what I remember, Dogar successfully captures her vigorous spirit and longing to write something "first-class" that will "change someone's life". And she did--just not in the way she'd hoped.

The ending is what particularly struck a chord with me. Dogar effortlessly captures the feeling of isolation and uses the tone to convey how forgotten people in concentration camps felt. Peter keeps asking throughout the book if we're listening to him, a commentary of the attitude of people during the time period and a call to action for the people who need to be listened to today. Particularly heartbreaking was Peter remembering Anne encouraging him to tell his story, to find the words, even if they didn't come easily to him. Dogar describes Anne as possessing a certain light, that Peter hopes went out painlessly and quickly upon her death--a metaphor for all of the children with hopes of the future who die at the hands of ruthless dictators before their time.

After letting the book sink in, I watched Anne Frank: the Whole Story, the 2001 Emmy Award winning mini-series based on Melissa Muller's book. Even though Dogar's book was historical fiction, it still gave me a more intimate sense of the characters and the movie impacted me in a different way than it ever had before.

Sometimes fresh perspectives help us see old stories in a new light. I think Dogar's did just that.

As a member of many groups to do with the Holocaust and remembrance, I recently found an e-mail that sparked my interest. I came across the performance art piece KAMP, but Hotel Modern (a Dutch group of performers) took place at St. Ann's Warehouse. Due to the death of my grandmother, I missed the show, but I vigorously searched for clips on YouTube. KAMP attempts to present the daily life of Auschwitz utilizing a scale model of the camp, complete with handmade puppets. A performance devoid of words, it attempts to bring the audience into the horrific, but impossible to understand world of a concentration camp.

Granted, I haven't seen the entire performance, but I had one major complaint with it. Although I did enjoy the concept, the lighting and the music, I felt too much emphasis was put on the masses and not enough put on the individual. Personally, I feel the only way people can make connections to the Holocaust (and bridge it to current happenings) is to recognize the humanity in the victims. When puppets stuck together to form rows of prisoners are placed on stage, it is hard to get a sense of any individual, which is the real loss in the Holocaust or any other genocide. We aren't losing masses of stick people, but actual people with families, hopes and dreams, faults and flaws. We are losing people just like you and me, which I feel is always essential to make people begin to understand something so outlandish. A well written character passing away under the thumb of an oppressive regime is much more heart breaking than watching masses of faceless, characterless people go to slaughter--at least in my opinion.

The installation is over in New York (although may be playing elsewhere), but you can look at a video here:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCWNQ2g9bLk">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCWNQ2g9bLk
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What do YOU think?

You can view Hotel Modern's website here.

Being a hopeful Holocaust scholar, writing a Young Adult book on the Holocaust and being a Jew, the Holocaust is constantly in the corners of my mind these days. Naturally, someone driven to be a Holocaust scholar or write a book about it would think about it more than most people, but lately it's pervaded all of my work.

The other night, I sat around with a group of friends as we talked about different things going on in our lives. Someone spouted the age old wisdom that "It all works out in the end", which someone else challenged saying that "It does all work out, unless it doesn't." Being me, I brought the subject of genocide to the table asking whether or not the Holocaust, indeed, "worked out" for the victims. To say everything works out in the end when regarding the mass murder of innocents doesn't quite make sense. On a more micro level, it can be hard to say that everything works out in the end for children who die of serious illnesses, etc. Sometimes I find myself wondering if everything works out in the end only for those of us fortunate to have everything work out.

My friend argued that good things have come of the Holocaust. I'm not sure where I stand on this statement, as I'm not someone who buys into the idea that the Holocaust happened for an actual reason. At least, to this point in my life, all of the reasons people have proposed to me haven't seemed rational. I guess when discussing the Holocaust, there fails to be a rationale.

This friend cited that one good thing that came out of the Holocaust was Lisa Kudrow reuniting with her long lost relatives on "Who Do You Think You Are?". While that episode was certainly touching, and probably available on NBC's website, it is hard to justify that the Holocaust is equal to that.

However, if you read Imre Kertesz's work, Fatelessness in particular, he speaks without reservation of the joy and humanity found in the Holocaust. The message of the movie, which he was heavily involved in, is no doubt a message of humanity and the "good times" spent in the camps.

Recently, I discovered Ruth Kugler's memoir Still Alive, in which she says "Absolutely nothing good came out of the concentration camps," she writes, recalling an argument with a naive German graduate student, "and he expects catharsis, purgation, the sort of thing you go to the theatre for?"

This is perhaps an argument that could go on cyclically forever. We cannot take the Holocaust back, so looking forward, what we can do is control our own future and look for the good in the cinders and ashes of it.

Maybe not everything works out for the best, but maybe looking forward, we can move toward healing the wounds.