Anne Frank Unbound: Media, Imagination, Memory

Introduction: Anne Frank, the Phenomenon

1 Introduction: Anne Frank, the Phenomenon The list is daunting. Dozens of musical compositions, ranging from oratorio to indie rock. A dramatization given hundreds of productions annually . Thousands of YouTube videos. A museum visited by millions. To these, add a growing number of works of fine art, biography, fiction, poetry, and dance, as well as films, radio and television broadcasts, and websites.Plustributes in theformofcommemorative coins, stamps, and other collectibles, memorial sites and organizations around the world, eponymous streets, schools, and institutions, to say nothing of a “day, a week, a rose, a tulip, countless trees, a whole forest, . . . and a village.”1 All inspired by a book that has been translated into scores of languages, published in hundreds of editions, printed in tens of millions of copies, and ranked as one of the most widely read books on the planet. These wide-ranging engagements with Anne Frank’s life and work are a phenomenon of interest in its own right and exceptional in several ways. To begin with, few public figures have inspired connections that are as extensive and as diverse, ranging from veneration to sacrilege. The expression of these connections can be playfully creative or can conform to well-established convention, and they are often deeply personal at the same time that they validate their subject’s iconic stature. Among the handful of people who have inspired this extraordinary kind of engagement—Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Albert Einstein, Elvis Presley —Anne Frank never participated, even indirectly, in her renown. The widespread interest in her rests largely on a single effort—her wartime diary—which no one else had read and few even knew existed during her brief life. 2 Anne Frank Unbound Within a few years of its first publication in 1947, the diary appeared in many editions and translations from the original Dutch, reaching millions of readers. Soon thereafter it won international acclaim for its official dramatization and filming. Widespread engagement with the diary continues, even as the text made available to the public has changed. When it first appeared in 1995, the English-language translation of the diary’s Definitive Edition, touted as “the first complete and intimate version of the beloved writer’s coming-of-age,” characterized the text as “a world classic and a timeless testament.” The diary’s Revised Critical Edition , first published in English in 2003, exhorted readers: “Anne Frank has lived on—in the minds and hearts of millions of people all over the world.”2 Today, people receiving a copy of the diary learn that they are joining a vast international body of readers of a masterwork and devotees of the author. To read the diary—or to see a play, film, or exhibition about Anne Frank, to discuss her diary in a classroom or hear her name invoked in a poem, song, or religious service—is to encounter and share in this phenomenon. The Anne Frank phenomenon shows no sign of abating. Tributes to Anne Frank now reach to the heavens (an asteroid was named for her in 1995), she has become a fixture of new social media (a Facebook page was created for her in 2008), and her diary garners ever more prestigious accolades (it was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register, along with the Magna Carta and the Nibelungenlied, in 2009).3 As this book went to press, two writers, Shalom Auslander and Nathan Englander , published works of fiction in which Anne Frank figures prominently , as an immortal presence haunting a contemporary American Jewish family’s home and an epitomizing test case of personal loyalty, respectively;4 newspapers report that Anne Frank, among other victims of the Holocaust, was posthumously baptized by a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.5 AlthoughthephenomenoncentersonAnneandherdiary,itextends to others in her family, especially her father, Otto Frank. Recent examples include a book documenting his “hidden life,” a published volume of his postwar correspondence with an American teenager, exhibits and publications of his amateur photography, including many pictures that he took of his daughters, and a documentary film about his inspirational Introduction 3 meetingwithMakotoOtsuka,aministerfromHiroshima.6 Anne’solder sister, Margot, is the subject of YouTube video tributes as well as a musical that imagines the contents of her own diary. Some of the other Jews who hid with the Franks have garnered attention in their own right (for example, a novel about Peter...