Remembering Anne Frank

Jews are a remembering people - not because we live in the past, but rather because we are determined to live, not only now, but in the future as well. We look back in order that we may learn the lessons of yesterday for our journey towards tomorrow.

On Saturday, 15th. July 1944, less than three weeks before the Frank family were arrested by the Nazis (on August 4th.), Anne Frank wrote in her diary (Penguin/Puffin, London 1997, p.330):

'It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos suffering and death. I see the world slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us, too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too will end, that peace and tranquillity will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I will be able to realise them!'

During the first week of the Anne Frank Exhibition, we will commemorate Kristallnacht, 'the night of broken glass' on November 8th. and 9th. 1938. Making a connection between the Nazis' most famous victim, and the first stage in their attempt to annihilate our people, gives us an opportunity to understand why it is so important for us to remember the Shoah: When we remember Anne Frank, we not only honour her memory as one of the six million slaughtered by the Nazis; we also honour her life and the gifts she bequeathed to us: Her feisty spirit; her determination to live until she died; her sense of purpose; her vision; her ability to see beyond the 'wilderness' that had engulfed her, to a time of peace and tranquillity.

Remembering Anne Frank involves learning lessons from her life - as well as from her death: As we peer into the wilderness of fear unleashed by the events of September 11th., and as we witness the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, let us find the courage both to envision a future of peace and justice beyond the terrors of the present, and to make that vision a reality. Tragically, Anne Frank did not survive to 'realise' her 'ideals'. We honour her memory best by doing what we can to engage in the great task of Tikkun Olam, repair of the world.