Human capacity for evil, perseverance and heroism

Sixty-four years ago this month, a fifteen-year-old Jewish girl from Frankfurt, Germany, died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She was only one of millions murdered by the Nazi regime and yet, in death, she would become much bigger – much more important – than she ever imagined herself to be in life.

The girl was Anne Frank.

Only six weeks ago, I had the sobering experience of walking through the barren and eerie upstairs hiding place in Amsterdam where she and her family lived, entombed, for two years – from July 1942 to August 1944 – until the German Security Force found and arrested them.

It was during that time Anne recorded her thoughts in diaries that are now famous around the world and a staple in elementary literary curriculum.

The thing that struck me as I stood outside what is now known as the Anne Frank House, a tall but narrow structure sandwiched among a row of similar buildings, was the beauty of the location. The house is located where two of Amsterdam’s beautiful tree-lined canals come together.

Even as I stood in line with other tourists, I couldn’t help but be struck by a stark contrast. In looking over the canals I was witnessing mankind’s capacity to transform natural elements into something stunning. And yet, just a few feet away, I was about to enter an edifice that would reveal the human capacity for the worst kinds of evil.

The Anne Frank house has no furniture. When Otto Frank, Anne’s father, returned after the war to restore the annex, the restoration team asked if he wanted the rooms refurnished to look as they had. He was vehemently opposed to this, declaring, “During the war everything was taken away, and I want to leave it like that.”

After the house was opened to the public, many people came away saying they felt the hideout was very spacious. Otto Frank’s response reminds us of the terrible fear the inhabitants lived in for two years: “You mustn’t forget the unbearable tension that was constantly present.”

Anne echoes this sentiment frequently in her diary. At one point, overwhelmed with the arguing that living in close quarters and unceasing anxiety brought about, she wrote, “The nicest part is being able to write down all my thoughts and feelings, otherwise I’d absolutely suffocate.”

It’s easy to understand why the young teen felt suffocated at times. There were eight people living in the space – the four Franks, another family of three called the Van Pels, and a family friend named Fritz Pfeffer. During the day when the factory workers were downstairs, the occupants of the annex could not talk above a whisper, run water, flush a toilet or walk around at all. Anne describe the hideout as “damp, dark [and with] rats.”

For two years, no one went outdoors. The curtains could not be opened during the day for fear that someone might see them. The small window in the attic provided the only source of fresh air. At night, the families would occasionally open another window a small crack.

As the war progressed, the families’ “helpers” were able to scrounge up less and less food. At one point Anne wrote that they would no longer have a “scrap” of butter or fat, and that they had recently been eating large amounts of mashed potatoes and pickled kale. She complained that the years-old kale produced a terrible stench that lingered in the annex.

In an attempt to make the hideaway more like home, Otto Frank brought Anne’s collection of movie star posters and postcards ahead of time. Anne spent many hours pasting them all over the walls, and thought it made the place look much more cheerful. Some of these same posters were on the wall as I walked through the annex.

As I stood there at the wall where Anne and her sister Margo’s growth was carved onto the wall (just as families with growing children do today) it was a poignant reminder that real life was being lived out in this place. In many ways, their lives were like ours, except, of course, that they lived with the constant fear of being discovered.

Anne struggled with conflicting emotions about her situation and lamented, “Not being able to go outside upsets me more than I can say, and I’m terrified our hiding place will be discovered and we’ll be shot.”

On August 4, 1944, the eight inhabitants of the annex were discovered by police. To this day it isn’t clear who betrayed them. They were shipped to concentration camps. Anne and her sister Margo died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Their mother died at Auschwitz. Only their father Otto survived the war.

It’s a tragic yet remarkable story of a little girl and her family’s struggle for survival. Much of it told from the pages of a diary.

How do I sum up my emotions as I left the Annex that day in Amsterdam?

I was struck by man’s capacity to do awful things while masquerading as heroic. (This, Hitler surely did.) I was terrified that so many people – beaten down by economic hardship, frightened by the scapegoating of a people different from themselves, and enticed by promises of a better future – chose to go along with such a sinister plan.

But I was also deeply moved as I thought of the brave souls who chose to help the Frank family, and place themselves at great personal risk. And I was moved by the heroic sacrifice of soldiers who rose above their own fears to fight the forces evil who had perpetrated this evil deed.

And finally, I was thankful; thankful for my family, thankful for freedom, thankful for the hope of faith.

Georgia Family Council is a non-profit research and education organization committed to fostering conditions in which individuals, families and communities thrive. For more information, go to www.georgiafamily.org, (770) 242-0001, stephen@gafam.org.

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A visit to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam inspires a variety of emotions

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