Anne Frank

[MrBern]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/26/nyregion/26frank.html

snips

Feb. 23 — A congressman from Long Island wants the United States government to grant honorary citizenship to Anne Frank, at least in part to atone for having denied her family entry in the years before her arrest and deportation to a Nazi concentration camp.


“I cannot see the point,” said Bernd Elias, a first cousin and president of the Anne Frank Foundation, a charitable organization based in Basel, Switzerland. “She saw herself as Dutch. That is the country she wanted to be a citizen of.”

 

[scotrace]

Fine time to decide she can come to the US. Isn't there something pressing that actually has to do with governing in which the goood Congreesman might profitably employ his time?

 

[Phil]

I guess it's a nice gesture. But it seems a little redundant to give a deceased woman citizenship. To me it sounds like a publicity stunt for votes.

 

[Jay]

A day late and a dollar short. And then some. I really cannot see the point in this.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

This is the dumbest stunt I've ever heard of. It's also arrogant: why the heck should that congressman assume that Anne Frank would have wanted to be a U.S. citizen? And don't tell me that American citizenship would have automatically saved her from Auschwitz: U.S. citizens died there too.

.

 

[Fletch]

The Congressman is probably presuming that had Anne escaped Holland, she would have done what thousands of other survivors did and become New Yorkers.

By now, he clearly imagines Anne living in sedate retirement in Great Neck, taking occasional speaking engagements, and snowbirding it in Vero Beach.

 

[scotrace]

Anne Frank's tale is so wrenchingly tragic. It just really seems trite and... icky in a very Ugly American way to make such a ploy. She is also a worldwide symbol of hope in the face of unspeakable evil. She has long since won the hearts of people of most every nation. To try to officially appropriate her memory in such a way is just... ugly!

Marc, you're right. How very arrogant to assume she would want such a dubious "honor."

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Seems like more than a little guilt there for any of us to make such a gesture.

Too bad no one did so back in 1942.

I'd like to think that, had she lived, she would have become a famous writer.

karol

 

[Elaina]

Well, it certainly isn't going to change anything. School kids won't learn she's an "American", she'll continue to belong to the world, as it were. She's still tragically dead, and by the 9th grade, everyone would still have read her diary.

This is one of those things that are being done to boost the Americans in the eyes of the world; a grotesque prank designed to make our government look better.

Maybe the congressman needs to go talk to Holland about that kind of honor.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Yes, there were people in Holland and other countries willing to hide Jews, risking their own lives in doing so.

Bless them.

karol