day 81 – Anne Frank

I hesitated to write about Anne.  I had read The Diary of a Young Girl and weeped bitterly in Junior High.  Her tragic end and the Holocaust enraged me.  Her treatment, a symbol for all who have ever been treated badly, sickens me to this day.

I solve crypto quotes and enjoy word play.  Crypto quotes are coded messages; one letter really stands for another.  So, A=S perhaps or A=O.  You have to figure it out each time and what you solve is always a famous quote.  I am fond of great quotes, too.

The other day, I solved a crypto quote from Anne Frank.  It was actually two different quotes.  I saved it because I loved the quotes, but it was on my mind that these particular quotes were written by someone with such a tragic end, outspoken and a young, ambitious writer.  I clipped it and let it hang around my writing desk.  Occasionally, I re-read it, picked it up and pondered.

Then, weeks after receiving a local periodical, I decided to peruse it, just a few days ago, around the same time I solved Anne’s quotes.  In a small area of the layout on page 3 with Community News and advertisements for a nearby market, I read:

Anne Frank Remembered.  

Whaaaat?

Within three paragraphs was an invitation to meet and greet with Eva Schloss at a local temple and have breakfast. Eva was supposedly her friend and stepsister.  I missed the event because it had already happened but still I wondered when was the last time I even have heard of Anne Frank’s name ?  Why did her name come up twice in a week’s time?  You know I don’t like to think about this.  Hmmmm.

Then, two days ago I handled a potentially sticky, awkward and myopic comment with resolute grace.  It was related to religion.

Yesterday, I stood firm against another invasion of someone’s mishandling of a rule that could have been offensive to others and spoke up where at another time I probably would have cowered or let it go for fear of rebuttal or rebuke.  And, it stung to be the one to receive the dirty looks for bringing up tenets everyone else was ignoring, but somebody, why not me? has to do it.

What does this have to do with Anne Frank?

If people before me hadn’t stuck up for others like me or for the solutions that work or for my family’s freedom to immigrate,  I would not be here.  If you think you are safe for not getting involved, check in with your heart and soul.  Should you really stay out of a controversy because it’s not your cause?  Isn’t being part of the human race cause enough for getting involved in any human loss by the hands of a human?  Does anyone else realize that if something is being done to your brother/sister it can be done to you?

I get really impassioned on this subject in general; I wanted to be a foreign correspondent/journalist way back then when I was young and an idealist and anyone who knows me, knows I am outspoken.   But, just like I admit I am not Ms. Eco-Green, I have also not spoken up plenty of times, to save my own hide/face.  Shame on me.

This blurb in a local paper and the crypto quotes brought back the human suffering and injustices inflicted on others that many people just stood back and watched.

It is in the tiny details of everyday living though and in keeping authentically clear with ourselves that we can speak our truth, daily.  Just like Anne wrote about in her diary. Her ambition, her passion and her work was to note, observe and write; truths about her day and how she saw the world in her wise, innocent and powerful way.

I sometimes hold back because I know my outrage may sound so pithy or whiny, get me in trouble or make me some enemies –  but when I let something slip by on purpose, I feel I let myself down.

The two quotes:

“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.”

“He who has courage and faith will never perish in misery.”

Simple, heartfelt and true.  Thank you, Anne Frank.  Thanks for the reminder.

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