The Lessons of
Anne Frank

In this article the proud father of Anne Frank, Otto Frank (1889 – 1980), explains that by the late Fifties it seemed more and more teenagers were contacting him to say that very few parents or teachers seemed willing to discuss the Nazi years in Germany. These inquiries were too often dismissed as bothersome or simply brushed away with hasty answers like, “The Nazis built the Autobahns”.

Otto Frank points out that this was not always the case, and goes on to recall that there existed a more sympathetic and regretful Germany for at least a decade after the war. Yet, in 1960 he sensed that there existed a subtle movement to whitewash Hitler; a battle was being waged for the mind of this teenage generation:

“It is being fought largely between the guilt-ridden older generation responsible for Hitler and a middle generation, too young to have been deeply involved with Nazism, but old enough to have fought and been hurt by the war.”

Click here to read about the inmate rebellions that took place at Auschwitz, Sobibor and Triblinka.

In 1950 there was a fear that the Nazis would return to power

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