January 27th was a day like any other wintry, Wisconsin day, but I soon realized this day was extremely important to all people of the Jewish faith and in particular, those who were victims of German intolerance at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1945. On this day, Soviet troops liberated the camp, and this day is now recognized as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day by the United Nations. We must never forget what happened to six million Jews and millions of other victims at the hands of the Nazis. Due to the current rise in anti-semitism, Holocaust denial, virulent anti-Muslim bigotry, and persecution of Christians, racism, and anti-refugee hatred around the world, the United Nations sponsors this day with themes; this year’s theme was “Memory, Dignity, and Justice.” This is an effort to challenge hatred, strengthen solidarity, and champion compassion among all nations. Primo Levi once said, “The silence of the majority allows the minority to destroy the world.” Edmund Burke pointedly stated, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Not realizing the significance of today, I just finished the book, “The Betrayal of Anne Frank,” by Rosemary Sullivan. If you have ever felt the power of someone else’s written words, you should read this book. The book peeked my interest with several ideas. One, as fascism is rising again around the world, human beings are once again under pressure to turn on one another just like they did in WWII. Tolerance has given way to distrust. More importantly, people are not standing up for one another as they have in the past. The people who are perpetrating intolerance and hatred among us generally consider themselves to be victims, swimming in self-pity. The bullies of the world don’t know what to do with themselves once they are unmasked and are taken to task over their behaviors. If we allow authoritarianism to flourish, division and fascism will become increasingly tools of physical and rhetorical violence. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said that the world accepts a certain amount of evil because evil is a part of a human’s behavior. When that tolerance is surpassed, morality disappears, and people are capable of doing anything.
In the Amsterdam of Anne Frank’s young life, the Dutch were already divided by their own titles: Catholics, Protestants, Socialists, and Liberals. These divisions made them ripe for a German invasion and ideology. The Netherlands were a police state even before the Nazis arrived; any dissent by Dutch citizens was met by a brutal German repression. Jewish refugees from other countries were considered as “undesirables” before the Germans arrived, and every citizen had an identity card that gave the Germans all the information they needed to deport people to labor and concentration camps. Jewish possessions were sold to government officials and other pro-Nazi Gentiles to pay for these deportations. When the Nazis judged others on the basis of their religion and denied responsibility for their own actions, it became easier to kill anyone who didn’t live up to their standards. The Germans achieved power by repressing people and by making them think that they were insiders. Once the Dutch were convinced they were part of the elite Nazi hierarchy, they became stooges and could easily be manipulated to do horrendous acts against ordinary Dutch people.
I have visited the Annex in Amsterdam where the Frank and the Van Pels families hid for over two years; it is an incredible place where the voices of three teenagers still whisper to emotional tourists and Anne’s actual diary is encased in glass. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up as I struggled to climb the narrow staircase up to the highest room in the building where three young lives tried to imagine their futures. Did I imagine hearing the Nazis coming up behind me with their pistols drawn? Pictures line the walls of the last room in the museum, and I will never forget the picture of Anne standing in Auschwitz. Tears ran down my face as I hurried to get down to the entrance. I believe in our youth, but I can’t imagine any of today’s youth bearing torture like Anne did. I do remember her courageous last thought in her diary; “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”
One of the most interesting things about the book’s investigation into the betrayal of the families was that one person definitely stands out among many possible suspects. His name was Van den Burgh, a notary in the Amsterdam government who had three possible means to turn on his own people. He was a member of the Jewish Council that was responsible for keeping lists of Jews in hiding and for placing Jews on the transports. His own personal motive was to save himself and his family from the transport lists. And third, he had the ability, the freedom, to move about the city, moving among high Nazi officials.
After returning from Auschwitz, Otto Frank received a note containing information about who might have turned his family into the Germans. What warmed my heart was Otto’s Christian love in refusing to act on this information because he did not want to shame Van den Burgh’s children. Van den Burgh’s power lay in his notary responsibilities, and he relished sitting at the same table as the Nazi officials. Otto’s power, and more Christian character, proved that love can really win out over evil. The Van den Burgh children lost their father due to throat cancer shortly after the war, but at least, they grew up realizing their own goals and making their own mistakes without bearing the shame of their father’s acts.
In spite of every show of anti-semitism, denial, bigotry, hatred, and anti-refugee ideology, we must never forget what happened in the past for it determines the present and the future. We all carry within us the ability to do good; we must fight evil when we see it, hear it, and feel it. Our children must believe that love does win out over evil, that goodness is the crucible on which we build a better world, and that all nations of the world must be their brother’s keeper. For the memory, dignity, and justice of the human race, we must stand up for every person’s freedoms. In the spirit of unity, I wear my “Star of David” necklace because I am a descendant of one of the twelve tribes of Israel, and I am a child of God. We are all one family because that’s what God wants us to be. Anything else is an affront to His love and grace.
“The Betrayal of Anne Frank”…Anne Sullivan…Harper Collins Publishers…2022
Anna Hartt
