Poignant article in the June Smithsonian concerning Anne Frank and her childhood friend Hannah Pick-Goslar. The article contains excerpts from Pick-Goslar's memoir, published last year after her death, which retells Anne Frank's early life, before the two years she spent hiding from the Nazis. It is a stark reminder of how Anne and Hannah were typical young girls before the dark days of the Holocaust. From stories about their schooling, birthday parties, and the instant friendship that was born on their first day of nursery school, Pick-Goslar depicts Anne before the evil which was perpetrated upon her and her family.
While I am sure I read Anne Frank sometime during my years in elementary or high school, I didn't remember that Anne and her family experienced the horror of the Holocaust while living in Amsterdam, Holland. They had fled Germany when it became clear that Jews were no longer welcome, only to find that as time passed, the disease of antisemitism knew no national boundaries.
I won't recount the details of the excerpt, suffice it to say that through the eyes of a young girl, we experience the slow change from carefree school days, birthday parties, and walks to the local ice cream store, to harassment, home invasions, and ultimately, children being removed from their parents. It seems as brutal and surreal as any fiction story might present, except it was all too real.
While Anne's story, as reflected through her famous diary, depicts the horrors of her situation, for me, Hannah's is even more horrific. For her, there was no logic behind the prejudice. As she begins to realize her only crime was to have been born Jewish, (can you say birth lottery), we see the hate being made manifest against a young girl and her family, and it is heart wrenching. To say what was happening to her was unfathomable, is an understatement of the nth degree.
I mention this story, for two reasons.
One, in the current trend of erasing difficult history, and unflattering episodes in our own American story, I wonder if those same people would be lobbying German schools to remove Anne Frank's story from their libraries if they lived there. And perhaps closing down the places where Jewish people were slaughtered in the name of saving our children from being uncomfortable. It seems that rather than facing the evil, and I don't use that word loosely, that we exhibited in our treatment of the Native populations of America, and then the humans brought here as slaves to help build our economy, we have many people who prefer to pretend that those affronts to our creator didn't happen.
As if erasing those events might allow us to live in the false reality that nothing bad ever happened in our country, and that God loves us more than those who reside elsewhere.
The sad thing is, America is a great country, a place of hope, of opportunity, of freedom, not because those things didn't happen, but because, at least some of us, have learned the lessons of our mistakes. We can have two thoughts in our head at the same time, that we haven't always followed the golden rule of doing unto others as we would want done to ourselves, but that we still strive to achieve that lofty goal. And understanding and confronting our misdeeds is part and parcel to that process.
The danger, as it has been proven time and time again, is that by ignoring our past evils, by pretending they didn't happen, or that by not teaching them, our children will be "safe", we place those same children in danger of repeating those mistakes, not having learned the lessons that hate and prejudice can turn even good people into instruments of the kind of beliefs that create the environment for casting "others" as enemies. And even worse, caching that bias while using religion and "god" to justify the atrocities.
Which brings me to point number two, the current assault on LGBTQ and trans people's rights. Like Anne and Hannah, many of the victims of this assault are children who have gender identity issues. Rather than listening to these kids, and their parents, certain legislators and presidential aspirants, choose to demonize them. The kids are no more guilty than Anne and Hannah, yet are being treated by some within the institutions that are supposed to protect them, as anomalies, at best, unnatural and unworthy of God's love, at worst.
When I engage with young people I know through my children and those I work with, I have hope that this anti-human behavior will lose its luster and momentum as today's 20 and 30 somethings become tomorrow's parents and leaders, just as those preaching anti-gay rhetoric in the 80's and 90's were replaced with a generation that helped legalize gay marriage and improved equality in the workplace.
But in the meantime, I wonder how many diaries are being created by trans kids who are suffering under the yoke of prejudice, and how many biographies will be published in the future which detail the everyday lives of these children juxtaposed with the overt hatred that they are experiencing.
The truly sad part is that some day there will be books which demonstrate how stupid we were in how we treated the LGBTQ and trans community in this time. The question is when your children and grandchildren ask you about your actions, will you be keeping silent in shame at how you participated, or wonder, just as we do now about how the Germans could have attempted the genocide of the Jews, how an alleged civilized society could treat other people, especially children, so grievously.
Oh, and by the way, it light of the Saudi Arabian government's attempted takeover of the PGA and professional golf, I am waiting for those who are boycotting Bud Light to boycott professional golf, and any sponsor who advertises during its tournaments. Why, you ask? Well, I imagine most of you remember that little incident called 9/11 in which 19 terrorists high jacked jet liners and crashed them into the Twin Towers in New York, and the Pentagon in DC. Have you forgotten that 15 of the 19 terrorists were Saudi nationals?
Not to mention the killing of the Washington Post journalist in the Saudi consulate in Turkey in 2018, a murder sanctioned by the Crown Prince himself according to US intelligence.
Or how about the Saudi regime's notorious misogynist policies?
To me, selling a sport to the highest bidder, in this case the Saudis, a country with a history of human rights violations, and a regime with little compulsion in authorizing the assassination of a journalist critical of its policies, in addition to training and funding the 9/11 attack, should inspire far more outrage as compared to a private company sending a commemorative beer can to a trans woman celebrating her ability to live freely (which she couldn't do in Saudi Arabia).
Just goes to show you that money, the driving force behind all of sports, it seems, not to mention our politics, is the only thing anyone seems to care about anymore, including the golfers who flocked to the LIV for bigger paydays, shame on them. And don't forget that Donald Trump is making money hand over fist from these very same people, and that Jared Kushner received $2 billion (that is billion, with a b) from the Saudis after leaving the White House.
Where is the outrage, Kid Rock? Fox and Friends? Governor DeSantis?
Kind of makes you wonder if the whole trans people controversy is less about American values, and more about homophobia and hatred.
Perhaps if it was NASCAR being bought by the Saudis?
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