I tend to gravitate to documentaries when watching television. This week, I watched #Anne Frank Parallel Stories, directed by Italian journalists Sabina Fedeli and Anna Migotto.
This documentary is set up so Dame Helen Mirren does the retelling of Anne Frank’s life using the pages of Anne's diary. While exploring historic sites and museums, present-day teenager #KaterinaKat (Martina Gatti), texts an imaginary Anne in the second person and posts everything to Instagram. And, five holocaust victims Arianna Szörenyi, Sarah Lichtsztejn-Montard, Helga Weiss, and sisters Andra and Tatiana Bucci tell their heartwrenching stories.
I first read the Diary of a Young Girl also known as The Diary of Anne Frank when I was a teenager and contemplated the same things Gatti texts.
“Anne, who were you? What were you dreaming of? Where are you taking me?”
As the haunting documentary rounds out, we see how survivors like Helga Weiss coped with the atrocities of war by drawing pictures while others like Anne Frank wrote their feelings down on paper.
Anne started her spirit-filled diary in 1942 and like many of us, she had fictional friends, with Kitty being her favorite. Here are a few of Anne's entries.
"Dear Kitty...I like writing to you most, you know that don’t you, and I hope the feeling is mutual."
"It seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old girl. Oh well, it doesn't matter. I feel like writing."
Anne's final Diary entry: "As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-color joke. This side of me is usually lying in wait to ambush the other one, which is much purer, deeper and finer. ….”
Anne showed a great sense of purpose in editing her own diary. Her writings are an emotional read and many of us know very little of the fear Anne must have felt. Anne and the victims of the Holocaust taught us a great many things about hope for humanity. We know history has the power to repeat itself so I'll leave you with a few final quotes from Anne.
”What is done cannot be undone, but one can prevent it happening again.
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”