JUDITH GOLDSTEIN 23
Dutch didn't want to hear about the orderly disappearance of
110,000
Jews between
1942
and
1944.
There is, however, one place in Amsterdam, and maybe others as
well, where the myth of Anne Frank does not flourish. This is in the
social hall of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue. After attending a service in
the sanctuary, one goes into an adjoining room to eat and socialize. On
the central wall is a picture of Anne Frank at age twelve-one that we
have all seen numerous times. There is no written explanation on the
wall-no attempt at identification, just a remembrance. The Franks
were members of the original Liberal Jewish Synagogue.
No one in the congregation needs any explanation for what happened
to her.
In
this place, there are no misconceptions concerning the symbolic
and the real Anne. The burden of living with that past is hard enough.
Living in today's somber shadows of Dutch tolerance, indifference,
national victimization, and the Anne Frank myth may be almost as hard.
