I hope that this letter finds you well. As many of you know, the Rebbetzin and I are on our first visit to Europe. It is a trip that I have planned and researched for quite some time and a trip that I have truly looked forward to.

 

We are presently on a flight from Amsterdam to Rome and it has been quite an interesting and wonderful trip so far. In Amsterdam we saw Shuls built as a result of the Spanish Inquisition and others due to the Chelminiki Pogroms. 

 

These Shuls date back to the 1400 and 1500`s and a time long lost to today`s world. One Shul that I found most inspiring and is still active today, has no gas or electric and is lit solely by candle light. This Shul, built in the early 1500`s, is a clear reminder of the long and rich heritage we have as Jews.

Sadly, it also reminds us of the persecution the Jews have experienced for the past two thousand years.

 

Sort of bittersweet.

 

One of the most frustrating Jewish experiences I had in Amsterdam had to be the visit to the Anne Frank House.

Having read ``The Secret Annex`` by Anne Frank when I was just about twelve years old and having had a mother who lived in some of the same places as Anne, at the same time, it was an experience I both looked forward to and dreaded.

As a child I spent many hours reading, talking about and thinking of theHolocaust. Its ramifications were in no way abstract to me. Having been born ten years after it ended,it was not yet history, but still not recent enough to overwhelm me.

As I said, in many ways Anne Frank reminded me of my mother. Not just that Anne was originally from Frankfort, as was my mother, but in the few photographs of Anne that have been made public I always found a strong resemblance between them.

I knew that visiting the Anne Frank house would give me strong feelings, I knew that it would remind me of the effect the Holocaust had on me and my family and I suspected that the message the Anne Frank Foundation would present to the public would be one that might frustrate me, to put it lightly.

 

It turned out, for once, I was correct on every count and that is why, of all of my experiences so far on our trip, that this would be the one I wanted to write to you about.

 

To get into the Anne Frank House is an experience of its own. Here, sixty years after the death of Anne Frank, no matter what day or what time one comes to the house, there is always a line. That is, after all these years, in a world that has almost forgotten the Holocaust, there is something that touches the heart of people from all over the world. Imagine, getting into the Van Gogh Museum a museum that is world renowned often has no line- yet the Anne Frank House always, from morning to night, seven days a week and 364 days a year (there are thankfully closed on Yom Kippur) one has to wait in line for at least 30 minutes to see the house that Anne Frank and her family hid in when they were hiding from the Nazis.

 

To go through the entire house, climbing floor by floor as Anne and her family did, until one gets to the hidden annex- or hidden attic , as we would call it, where she and her family lived for so long until they were exposed by persons unknown, is a moving experience for anyone.

 

To see the room where her father charted her height or where she pasted photos or movie celebrities on the wall (some are still there) would move even the hardest of people. One could not help but be moved by how hard she and her family attempted a sense of normalcy in a place and at a time that was totally insane.

 

The climax of the visit is certainly the final stories of how Anne died in Auschwitz thirty days before liberation believing that her entire family had been murdered before her.

 

Then as one takes another turn, the message of the Anne Frank Foundation becomes clear- the story of Anne is the story of Human Rights- the story of how every human must be given freedom, human rights and safety. A beautiful message. One that the world can appreciate.  It speaks to the political prisoners of the world, of the persecuted peoples of the world and of the need to safeguard human rights.

 

As moving as that message is, it is certainly not the true message of the Anne Frank story. Anne`s is not a story of people seeking freedom, Anne`s is a story of anti-Semitism, a story of the world allowing the wholesale murder of two thirds of the Jewish people and in fifty-plus years, denying it even happened at all.

 

To generalize the story of Anne Frank is to steal her birthright, her true message- Anne Frank was murdered, as was her family for one reason and one reason alone- because she was a Jew.

 

No flowery messages, no quotes from Nelson Mandela or Lenny Kravitz (yes, they had quotes from these two engraved on the wall of the exit to the house), no general statements about human rights- the message was and is clear- the world stood by- time and again, as the Jews were forced into hiding, herded to death and destroyed and the world would do it again.

 

Why  Because the Jews stand for morality, they gave the world a conscience, they show human beings that they are greater than animals and clearly- it is hard for them to accept. Hitler, the perpetrator of this disaster we call the Holocaust, states in his Mein Kampf that the world would rise up against the Jews because they gave us a conscience, they expect humans to act and be civilized and, as Hitler states, we hate them for doing so.

 

The universal message of the Anne Frank House, in my opinion, takes any meaning from the life, death and story of Anne Frank and her family. They were not killed for political reasons, they were not killed because they were rich, poor, tall or short- they were killed for the sole reason that they were Jews.

 

To dilute that message and make it a universal message of human rights saddened me that afternoon, it frustrated me then as it does now.

 

We Jews cannot allow the world to take our tragedies and reform them to their liking. They killed Anne Frank over sixty years ago and they are killing her memory today.

 

The Anne Frank House is a message to the world that we know what you did to us. We know that you marched in with your boots, terrorized our children, humiliated our elders and murdered us all. We know it, we won`t forget it and you may have stolen the Anne Frank House from us, but there are still many of us alive today who carry the scars of Anne`s story, and the story of six million others- babies, mothers, zaydies- who gave their life because of the morality we represent, the Torah we carry as a flag and the expectation that Gd expects more of us all.

 

Yes, I was and am truly saddened to see what became of the Anne Frank story; it was a book that moved me as a child and one that clearly touches the hearts & souls of people around the world. It is a story that should remind us of what happened to the Jews and how important our task is.

 

I am on my way to Rome now. Of course there are many wonderful things to see there, however, I do expect that I will find the ancient ruins of the Romans, the extravagance of the Vatican and first ghetto in the history of the world. Going on vacation in Europe has its pluses. However, for us Jews, it also has its drawbacks.  In some ways, Europe is our past, in others it is a very large Jewish graveyard of two thousand years of Jewish persecution and murder.

 

On a different note, I hope that you are well. I missed our Canada Day celebration and, I must admit, it was the first TCS program since we started, that I have missed. I do hope that it went well.

 

The truth is, we have such a special group of people in the TCS that it is always a pleasure to get together. Be it the work of Kenny and the Brotherhood, who organized the celebration or the many other people involved in this or other special events- one must really admit, we have a group of caring and special people.

 

While I would be the first to counsel you, we all need to get away, a chance to recharge, I have to admit, and I miss being there.

 

So enjoy Shabbat, have a great week and the Rebbetzin and I look forward to seeing everyone on our return.