Anne Frank (36 page)
Authors: Francine Prose
video at Anne Frank Museum, talking about Anne’s final days, 57, 160
Pierce, William, 248
Poland emigration of Jews to, 42
largest percentage of Jewish population killed, 42
Portman, Natalie, 221–22, 223
Presser, Jacob, 37–38
Pressler Miram 10 90 149–50
Pretzien, Germany, 248–49
Price, Frank, 82, 181, 199
Probst, Robert, 261
Querido publishers, 81
“Reading Anne Frank as a Woman” (Waaldijk), 108
Remembering the Holocaust
(Keller), 257
revisions of
The Diary
(“b” version), 10, 13, 14–15, 17, 18–19, 79, 128, 130, 131, 133, 135–53, 154–55
revisions of
The Diary (cont.)
depiction of blowup over reading of a controversial work, comparison of versions, 146–47
first entries and second draft, comparison analysis, 135–53
Romein, Annie, 77, 79
Romein, Jan, 77, 78
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 185, 211
“jocular anti-Semitism” of, 86
preface to
The Diary
by, 85–87
Roth, Heinz, 244
Roth, Philip, 4, 8, 11, 13, 21, 136, 154
Sachsenhausen camp, 59
Satrapi, Marjane, 268
Schildkraut, Joesph, 207–9, 227
Schnabel, Ernst, 30, 32, 56
Schütz, Anneliese, 80
Search, The
(Levin), 179, 184
Sebastian, Mikhail, 95
Secker and Warburg publishers, 81
secret annex.
See
annex (secret annex)
Serenyi, Gitta, 173
Shore, Lesley, 256–57
Silberbauer, Karl Josef, 64–69, 71–72
60 Minutes,
21
Sobibor camp, 173
Spector, Karen, 259
Spiegelman, Art, 268
Stalinist Russia, 174–75
Stangl, Franz, 173
Stern, G. B., 7
Stevens, George, 227–28, 229, 231–37
D-Day footage on YouTube, 237
Stielau, Lothar, 241, 261
Stolen Legacy of Anne Frank, The
(Melnick), 177
Stone, David, 219
Stone, John, 232
Stoppelman, Max, 59
Strasberg, Susan, 208, 228
Straus, Nathan, 25, 41
Survival in Auschwitz
(Levi), 175
Tales from the Secret Annex or Tales from the House Behind
(Frank), 7, 36, 71, 74
“The Battle of the Potatoes,” 124–25
Cady’s Life
(novel fragment), 106, 197–98
“Delusions of Stardom,” 226
teaching
The Diary,
9, 19, 21, 154, 171, 253–69
anti-Semitism today, 269
author’s approach, 262–64
author’s class at Bard College, 271–77
author visits Bell Academy, 268–69
Cliffs Notes on
The Diary of Anne Frank,
253
“Cyberhunt Teacher’s Page,” 260
depiction of Anne and her story, 259–60
efforts to ban teaching of, 264–68
Goodrich-Hackett drama taught in lieu of
The Diary,
262
grim reality of, 256
historical context, helping students learn about, 254
positive element, 256–57
teacher preparation for, 254–55, 257–61
test questions and exams, 257, 258–59
“Teaching the Holocaust” (Johnson), 255
“Teaching the Holocaust Through the Diary of Anne Frank” (Baumel), 263
Tenth Muse, The
(Jones), 82
Thieresienstadt camp, 60
Thurman, Judith, 7, 17
Time
magazine, 88
Torres, Tereska, 177, 179–80, 182–83, 204
Treblinka camp, 173
Turner Diaries
(Pierce), 248
20th Century Fox, 227, 231
Tynan, Kenneth, 218
Ukraine, 165
United States publication of
The Diary
in, 80–88
refusal to grant asylum to the Frank family, 20, 41
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Auschwitz depicted, 55
home movie of Anne Frank in, 31–32
Mellor film footage in, 227–28
Vallentine-Mitchell publishers, 180
Van Amerongen-Frankfoorder, Rachel, 54, 57–58
Van Ammers-Küller, Jo, 146–47
Van der Waal, Jopie, 30
Vanguard Press, 81
Van Maaren, W. G., 51–52
Van Maarsen, Jacqueline (Jacque), 39
Van Marxveldt, Cissy, 90–91
Van Pels, Auguste, 4, 44, 99, 226
arrives at secret annex, 50
bathing arrangements, 101
desire to read the diary, 11
fate after discovery in annex, 55, 59–60, 112, 145–46
game, fantasies of liberation, 102
mealtimes, 101
passages about cut by Otto Frank, 6
Pfeffer and, 118, 123
portrayal in
The Diary,
107, 110–12, 124–25, 142–46
portrayal in the film, 145, 232–33
response to deficient diet, 103
Van Pels, Hermann, 4, 44
arrives at secret annex, 50
bathing arrangements, 101
fate after discovery in annex, 55, 59, 112
game, fantasies of liberation, 102
mealtimes, 101
as overseer for Pectacon, 40
passages about cut by Otto Frank, 6
portrayal in
The Diary,
110–12, 123–24, 142–46
response to deficient diet, 103
Van Pels, Peter, 44, 59
Anne’s romance with, 4, 16, 104, 113, 114–16, 119, 125
arrest of, 63, 116
arrives at secret annex, 50, 113
bathing arrangements, 101
in the
Diary,
75
fate after discovery in annex, 55
game, fantasies of liberation, 102
mealtimes, 101
portrayal in
The Diary,
112–16, 123, 197
portrayal in the film, 233
response to deficient diet, 103
revisions of writing about, 136, 137–39
Viking Press, 81
von Randwijk, Henk, 43
Voskuijl, Elizabeth “Bep,” 52, 71, 73, 102, 136, 242
Voskuijl, Johannes, 51, 52, 136
“Mr. Vossen” in
The Diary,
102
Waaldijk, Berteke, 108
Wall, The
(Hersey), 81, 183–84, 185
Ward, Geoffrey C., 86
war diaries b adults 54 95–96
Warshaw, Robert, 82–83
Weiss, Cara (Cara Wilson), 172–73
Weitz, Marc Stuart, 21
Westerbork detention center, 33, 95
Amsterdam’s Jews sent to, 51
Anne Frank at, 54–55
“criminal Jews” classification, 53
diary of Etty Hillesum and, 54
Frank family seen at, 54
Margot Frank ordered to report there, 49–50
occupants of the annex arrive in, 53
transports to Auschwitz from, 53, 55
White, Antonia, 85
Who Betrayed Anne Frank?
(TV movie), 21
“Who Owns Anne Frank?” (Ozick), 170, 172, 222
Wiesenthal, Simon, 66–67
Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands, 33–34
Williams, Tennessee, 200
Winters, Shelley, 145, 232–33, 235
Wise Blood
(O’Connor), 88
Wood, Natalie, 229
World War I: Otto Frank’s service in, 25–26
Wyler, William, 227
YIVO Institute, 20, 41
Zimmerman, Barbara (Epstein), 83–88, 185, 187, 199
letters to Otto Frank, 88, 186
AMONG THE THINGS I LEARNED IN THE PROCESS OF
writing this book is what writers mean when they say, on pages such as this one, that there are people without whom their work would simply not have been possible. Below is a list (only partial, I fear) of those who made it a possibility—and a pleasure—for me to conceptualize and complete this book.
In Amsterdam, Annemarie Bekker, Mariela Chyrikins, Theresien Da Silva, and Norbert Hinterleitner gave generously of their time. Erika Prins not only guided me through the intricacies of the Anne Frank archive, but read the manuscript and made helpful suggestions. Jan Erik Dubbelman and Dienke Honduis were unfailing sources of friendship, expertise, and encouragement when it was most needed. A historian and a fellow writer, Dienke gave my manuscript a meticulous reading and offered useful and indeed essential criticisms and edits that I incorporated in the final draft.
In Basel, Bernd Elias and Barbara Eldridge read the book with alacrity and responded with an enthuasism that meant a great deal to me. At the Anne Frank Center in New York,
Maureen McNeil not only introduced me to the teachers and students at the Bell Academy, but provided invaluable introductions to her colleagues in Amsterdam.
I would like to thank Peter Carey and the Hertog Fellowship program of the MFA program at Hunter College, which provided research assistants who aided me at every stage: Ana Jomolca, Annie Levin, Tennessee Jones. Thanks also to Zachary Wolfe, Christina Bailly, and Alexandra Bowe for helping to ready the book for publication, and to Mark Schaevers for his humor, his friendship, and his assistance with research and translation.
My brilliant students at Bard College reacted to Anne Frank’s diary in ways that moved me so deeply that I decided to end the book with a chapter describing their responses. I would like to thank each and every one of them: Alex Carlin, Gabriel DeRita, Evelyn Fettes, Sam Freilich, Simon Glenn Gregg, Shay Howell, Samuel Israel, Sonya Landau, Sara Lynch-Thomason, James Molloy, Emily Moore, Evan Neuwirth, Angela Sakrison, Tegan Walsh, and Daniel Whitener. I would also like to thank Leon Botstein for bringing me to Bard, and Norman Manea for his friendship and his kindness in introducing me to this remarkable institution.
My editor, Terry Karten, was, as always, patient, inspiring, and more helpful (in more ways) than I can possibly say. Nor can I express how profoundly I depended on the resourcefulness, the thoughtfulness, and the unfailingly cheerful and positive energy of my agent, Denise Shannon. Though I used to joke that I could hear my friends picking up a magazine on the other end of the phone when I began to rant obsessively about the subject matter of this book, the truth is that I relied on them to listen and advise me. Thanks to my sons, Bruno and Leon Michels, and my daughter-in-law, Yesenia Ruiz. And finally,
not one word of this book, or of anything I have written for more than thirty years, would have ever made it onto the page without the love and advice and support of my husband, Howie Michels.
Paris
May 14, 1924
Dear parents,
Last night I visited a club in Montparnasse where the men dress as women and the women as men. Papa would have loved it. And Mama’s face would have crinkled in that special smile she has for Papa’s passion for everything French.
The place is called the Chameleon Club. It’s a few steps down from the street. You need a password to get in. The password is:
Police! Open up!
The customers find it amusing.
A bar, a stage, a dance floor, leather banquettes, tables around the edges. A typical Paris nightclub, except for the clientele. But here’s the most surprising thing: the owner is Hungarian. She calls herself Yvonne. She’s tall and blond and dresses in red and has a weakness for sailors. She sings in that husky voice Papa adores, subdued and choked with tears. When she sang I heard Papa’s phonograph, muffled and locked in his study.
Yvonne’s song was about a woman whose sailor boyfriend has drowned at sea. I’d never heard a sadder song, not even from the gypsies. Yvonne sang with her eyes closed, one hand raking her hair. In her other hand, pressed to her forehead, she held an unlit cigarette.
She sang, I will never see him again. Never. Never again. A mournful arpeggio rippled from the out-of-tune piano while the tenor saxophone looped circles around the voice. The other musicians put down their instruments and sat back, watching Yvonne. It’s over, she sang. All over.
I felt clammy and chilled to the bone, though the club was smoky and hot. I reached for my camera the way, as a boy, I used to reach for your hands. But I’d left it in my room. I was hoping to make a few friends before I asked to take pictures of bankers and diplomats whose wives might not know that
their husbands go out dancing in high heels and dresses.
Even after a year in Paris, it took some getting used to. The hardest part was not staring. Or was I supposed to stare? Photographing these birds of paradise will be a challenge, don’t you think?
I was trying to communicate—with nothing so obvious as a smile, but let’s say a smile of the eyes—my admiration for the chic of women in tuxedos escorting women in evening gowns. As if these glorious peacocks cared what a penniless Hungarian artist thought of their fashion choices! Even Papa admits that the French have always had mixed feelings about anyone who hasn’t lived in France since the Neanderthal Era, though here in Montparnasse they like anything exotic.
By the time Yvonne finished the second verse, everyone was in love with her. I completely forgot myself and wept along with the rest. The ocean knew where her sailor was. We have seen him, said the waves. He is sleeping with us. You will never kiss his lips or feel the weight of his body again.
