Lessons from Anne Frank

Ella's been reading a book about Anne Frank in her fourth grade class. Not Anne Frank's actual diary, but a third person biography written for elementary schoolers. Since they began reading it a few weeks ago, Ella has come home very interested in Anne's story, excited to uncover more. She learned—and relayed to us—about how Anne hid in an attic for two years, died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, about Hitler and the Nazis, and the scourge of racism in Europe at the time of Anne's too-short life.

Ella is very aware of half of her family's Jewish heritage (my side). She enjoys partaking in traditions like the Passover seder and lighting the candles on Hanukkah, and learning about Jewish customs, as well as the customs of other religions and nationalities. So I was happy that her school felt it was important to expose its young, impressionable students to powerful stories like those of Anne Frank's, and to the themes of tolerance and acceptance.

Last Wednesday, Ella and I were browsing through a used bookstore and we came across a copy of Anne Frank's "Diary of a Young Girl." Ella's eyes popped out of her head.

"Is that Anne Frank's real diary?" she asked.

"Well, it's not the actual, original—"

"No, I mean a copy of the real book? With Anne Frank's actual writing?"

I nodded and bought it for her. She carried her book with her to dinner, and Ella read me Eleanor Roosevelt's introduction, and another couple of pages. "I can't wait to read this!" she nearly bursted. "I'm so excited to learn more about Anne Frank!"

Before bed that night, we put aside the other book we were reading together and dove into Anne's first few diary entries.

Anne Frank at work

Dear Kitty...

Within three pages, Anne tells of how Jews were forced to wear a big yellow star on their clothes to show that they were Jewish. My 9-year-old didn't see why that was a big deal.

"It's humiliating," I explained.

She didn't get it.

"It was the Nazis' way of singling out the Jews to make them feel different, and afraid. Do you see?"

Ella shrugged.

"Imagine that no one was allowed to eat pancakes, and you were part of a small group that liked them, and everyone who liked pancakes needed to wear a big pancake on their shirt," I said. "Wouldn't you feel awkward? Embarrassed? Afraid?"

"I guess."

I couldn't understand how my curious, intelligent 9-year-old wasn't getting my point. I had to dig deep. "The Nazis tried to make the Jews out to be evil," I said. "By making only them wear yellow stars, they were basically saying that Jews were not equal to everyone else. That's racism and it's mean, and wrong."

Why did Ella have such a hard time grasping how being required to wear a star on one's clothes was humiliating, offensive, and blatantly anti-Semitic? Then it came to me: maybe her hopeful, idealistic brain simply couldn't process the motivation behind hatred. My frustration began to morph into relief. And envy.

Ella looked like she was still processing my words. I felt like I had to say one more thing to hammer home my point. But instead, I hugged her tight, and kept reading.