Anne Frank would have loved Covid Isolation – the worst article ever written
In “Lessons in living from Anne Frank”, a writer in Canada’s Globe and Mail wonders what the famous diarist who hid from the Nazis before being captured by the Gestapo and murdered in a death camp would make of Covid-19. Debra Dolan begins:
It had been nearly 50 years since I read The Diary of a Young Girl. What a timeless piece of writing; especially during a global pandemic with its restrictions, anxiety and isolation.
Because being hunted down by a murderous death cult who wanted to murder every Jew (totting up 6 million dead) is eerily similar to having to wear a mask to buy takeaway coffee and ordering groceries on the web. Frank remained in hiding for 761 days in a hole behind a bookcase before being sent by a cattle truck to Auschwitz, where she was tortured, enslaved and murdered.
As my COVID fatigue has gotten the better of me in recent weeks I started to say to myself, “What would Anne do?” or “How would Anne describe this time?” and “How would she cope?”
At a guess I’d say Anne Frank would find lockdown akin to a gentle breeze on sunny day. And then our writer notes that she is “like Anne”. Both of them kept a diary. As Dame Edna Everage is wont to put it, that’s “spooky.”
And then we get to Anne & Me:
As I wrote that first entry, in December, 1969, I thought that, maybe, Anne Frank had been a distant relative. When I looked in the mirror or at the women in my life, I saw her: We all had similar thick brunette hair, strong facial features and weak yet determined smiles. I, too, had a fraught relationship with my mother and, like Anne, was self-aware, sensitive and easily hurt. We were both diarists with no friends recording our boredom, fear and struggles.
Jew or Not a Jew?
Although we were not hiding in an Amsterdam annex, my family also had secrets. There had been rumours that my grandparents had been Polish Jews who had changed their identity to survive the atrocities of war.
A Bigger Oeuvre Than Anne Frank’s
…whether we write till we are only 15 years of age, such as Anne, or still at 62, as I can. I have discovered personal growth occurs in how we respond to universal struggles.
Anne Frank was murdered.
Image: Anne Frank on Zoom.
Posted: 4th, March 2021 | In: News Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
