When I moved to Amsterdam, I was aware that my apartment would be a couple doors down from the Anne Frank House. I remember reading the book as a kid and hearing the house referenced in movies such as “The Fault In Our Stars.” I didn’t know until I arrived, that living so close would mean wading through throngs of tourists and ringing my bike bell like a mad woman every time I want to get home.
Until I visited the Anne Frank House, I didn’t understand just why people are willing to stand in line for hours stretched in crowds around the block to see a young historical figure’s hiding place.
Granted, it’s not at all surprising when someone says they want to visit the Anne Frank House. It is reminiscent of all the horror of WWII, but from the perspective of a child. It humanizes the travesties of the past and helps us to understand what we can learn for the future.
All that being said, I thought that once I walked into the house that I would be hit with a wall of emotion. I have been to both of the Holocaust museums in the U.S., and twice I have been moved to gut-wrenching tears. Needless to say, I put on my waterproof makeup this morning.
My appointment was at 4:45 (if you are ever in Amsterdam and you want to go to the Anne Frank House, buy your ticket online — if you buy it weeks/months in advance then you can walk up to the door and go right in). I arrived, picked up a brochure and proceeded to listen to the story of Anne Frank: her family, her perspective, her father’s attempts to save his family, his worker’s best efforts to conceal their presence from the Nazi authorities.
As I walked through the house, the factory, the secret vault, and the steep staircases I struggled, but not for the reasons that I thought I would. I had the perpetually recurring thought: that Anne is just one girl. Anne Frank’s story is just one of so many stories and perspectives of horror and tragedy and yet one of so few whose accounts have not been blotted out of history and forgotten. We urge ourselves to remember the awful things that happened to Jews during the Holocaust, and we glorify one story. We hope that giving a voice to one will be good enough to make up for muting the words of so many.
I’m not saying that going to the Anne Frank House is wrong. I’m not even saying that reminding people of what she has to say is inconsiderate. I’m saying that so many people, including myself, have seen her as a character in a book — a girl who is so famous that her story almost sounds like a myth. My heart breaks for the people whose lives were lost in those horrendous years, for humans whose only crime was to have a certain color hair or skin tone. Even worse, my soul cringes to admit that we are beginning to do the same thing today.
We wage wars on brown bodies and head coverings; we fire our guns at defenseless women and children because their skin craves melanin. Tell me if you believe that each person, each child will have a museum erected in their honor that people from around the world will come to mourn? Will we publish the cries of the segregated, the disheartened, the oppressed? Until we capture the screams of the victims of violence in bottles and throw them into the ocean we must ask ourselves, why aren’t we throwing ourselves on top of the hurt and accused to shield them from their persecutors?
And so I say, with the world up in arms like it is today, we have only one option; to stand up and fight. To use our voices as tools to empower a planet full of humans that are all different, but simultaneously, exactly the same. This is not about one girl’s diary, but the beginning of inspiration to thousands of people to speak up without fear, an invitation for children to express themselves in an environment where they no longer understand the definition of the word, "safe." To prevent another Holocaust, to prevent the dreams of children from being crushed, to find unity in the search for answers. In a way, we can all find a part of ourselves in Anne, and hopefully this house can burden us with the strength, perseverance, and hope of Anne latching onto a piece of our humanity that won’t let us rest.
Anne Frank was a writer, a vocal warrior, a fierce believer. She would have fought for equality, hope, and opportunity if she had survived.
This is our burden.
To write.
To find our voice and give voices to those who are muted.
To fiercely believe that we CAN create a better world.
