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Innocence in the face of Evil:

Anne Frank

by Sister Usha

Divinely Female

Recent events in Kosovo and East Timor have inspired me to add the name Anne Frank to the list of women venerated as saintes by Divinely Female.

Most people are familiar with her biography, so let me summarize it very briefly. She was a Jew born in the Netherlands. When the Germans conquered her country in 1940, she and her family went into hiding. They lived in an attic for quite some time, supported in secret by the generosity of some very kind people. Eventually, however, they were discovered and deported to concentration camps in Poland. Anne died at Oswiecim (Auschwitz).

Anne's diary was saved by one of the custodians at the concentration camp. It was published, and later made into an award-winning movie. The innocence of youth is a constant theme in the book. Anne advocates that people of all religions should get along with one another. She never stopped dreaming of a future brighter than the world she knew. It is impossible to imagine why a young girl so full of hope and optimism could possibly be viewed as a threat by anyone, a threat so serious as to merit her death.

Anne Frank is not the first person to advocate tolerance for people of other faiths. Many others have done so, and we echo their sentiments. Anne's words are especially moving because of who said them and when. This girl voiced love and tolerance in the midst of the most terrifying manifestation of hatred the world has ever known. The amount of love in her heart must have been immense for it to endure under such conditions. Some people have held forth the Holocaust as evidence of the inherently evil nature of humanity. We hold forth Anne Frank as evidence of the opposite.

We wholeheartedly agree with Anne's hope and optimism. The Nazis were not the first people to commit the crime of genocide, nor are they the last. But we hope and pray with all our hearts that someday there will be a last time, and that the world will finally be rid of that evil scourge. This may not happen soon, but we hope that some day it will.

May Anne Frank serve as a symbol of the victims of oppression everywhere, not merely Nazi oppression but wherever hatred has reared its ugly head. Only in this way will she not have died in vain.