Anne Frank: Reflections on Her Life and Legacy

Of all the memoirs that convey the human devastation of Hitler's Final Solution, Anne Frank's "The Diary of a Young Girl" is by far the most popular and influential. Since its publication in Holland in 1947, the diary has been translated into more than fifty languages, reprinted in millions of copies, and transformed into plays, films, teaching guides, and political tracts. These contending interpretations all serve to illuminate as well as obscure the "real" Anne Frank. This book is the most complete anthology of the disparate facts and interpretations of Anne Frank. Here in a concise, readable volume are two dozen articles and memoirs most relevant for understanding her life, death, and legacy. They assess Anne Frank's qualities as a writer and scrutinize the proliferating controversies about her reputation, especially the way the stage and film versions have altered perceptions of her life and her diary. They also consider how interpreters of Jewish experience in World War II have defined Anne Frank's significance for memorializing the Holocaust. Anne Frank's memoir of eight Jews hiding in an attic for two years continues to resonate as a haunting reminder of the promise of a generation that was almost completely snuffed out. Thrown into relief by the horrors she constantly feared and eventually suffered, the young girl's uninhibited observations and self-analysis retain their poignancy and power. Supplemented by a complete record of the diary's publishing history and an extensive bibliography and index, this book provides an intriguing glimpse at how fact, fiction, history, and legend are intertwined.