Not Forgotten – The Many Lives of Anne Frank by Ruth Franklin

The Diary of Anne Frank is the best-known chronicle of Jews in hiding during World War II and Anne Frank is one of the war's most famous victims. Anne was a German Jew who emigrated with her parents, Otto and Edith and older sister Margot, to Amsterdam during the rise of Hitler. At the age of 13, Anne and her family went into hiding in rooms above and behind her father's place of business, where they were joined by their friends, the van Pels and their son, and later Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist. They were able to survive in hiding for over two years, but were betrayed, arrested, and sent to the concentration camps. The sole survivor of the eight was Otto Frank, who lived to 1980, and died at the age of 91.The diary has been translated and published in a multitude of languages and countries. It was dramatized in a Broadway play, Hollywood movie, and other formats. This is all well known.

Ruth Franklin, this volume's author, has taken a unique approach to Anne's life. She has divided Anne's life and afterlife as a celebrated icon into separate sections.

The first section is biographical, but in greater depth than is often presented, with material about her friends and classmates, as well as her parents and sister, and of the helpers who brought food and supplies to the hidden families, and who kept their secret.

The second part addresses the publishing of the diary, the development of the play and film, and delves deeply into Otto Frank's decades of work to bring his daughter's writing to the greater world. While I was certainly familiar with some of the events that resulted in the diary's initial publication, and translation into English, this book examines the circumstances of its publication and the following representations in much greater depth. Franklin also covers the creation of the Anne Frank House, the museum in Amsterdam at the site of the hiding place, and its further evolution.

I first read the English translation, published in the United States in 1952, as Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, in the mid-1960s, when I was about 12, so I was close to Anne's age at the time. I remember how shocked I was when reading the text after the final entry: "Anne's diary ends here". I felt such a strong kinship with her, and each year, when her birthday would come around, just two days before my own, I would remember her and how old she would have been had she survived the war – and I still think of her each year, though now she would be approaching 100. I had such a hard time accepting that Anne had been arrested, held in captivity, and eventually died a sad and painful death. It truly registered with me in the most graphic way just how unfair life could be.

I no longer have my original copy, but I read it over and over, along with the following revised edition, and many books that both examine and extol Anne's work, but Franklin's book is so insightful, and so moving, that I felt almost overwhelmed by it. It is a fascinating testament in particular to Otto Frank's work to bring the diary, and Anne's story, to the world. He succeeded. As Anne wrote, "I want to go on living after my death", and yes, she truly has.

From the Flames – Kalman & Leopold: Surviving Mengele's Auschwitz by Richard K. Lowy

This extraordinary book is an account of what two young teenaged boys, each one half of sets of fraternal twins, experienced, in the time preceding, and during their incarceration, in Auschwitz during World War II.

They were subjects of cruel, invasive, and horrific medical experimentation performed by Dr. Josef Mengele and his staff of doctors and technicians. Mengele's particular subjects of interest were sets of twins and dwarfs, who upon their arrival at the concentration camp, were separated from other family members who were often sent directly to their deaths in the gas chambers, or worked to death if they were deemed fit enough upon entry.

The two boys were Kalman Braun, who became Kalman Baro-On in his new post-war life in Israel, and Leopold Lowy, who emigrated to Canada where he married and became the father of three, including Richard K. Lowy, a filmmaker and the author of this book.

In Auschwitz, the two boys worked together on whatever duties were assigned to them by their Nazi handlers. Any mistake or misstep resulted in harsh punishment, but their solidarity helped them to survive, with Leopold (known as "Lipa"), the older and more worldly wise, often advising and protecting Kalman.

Many years later, Richard Lowy made a film about his father's life, which was shown on Israeli TV. Kalman, who had been searching fruitlessly for Lipa for decades, saw it, and that ultimately led to their being reunited. Kalman contacted Richard, and with his reminisces, along with his father's, this extraordinary book came about.

The book includes accounts of their Auschwitz experiences from Kalman and Leopold, maps, and other supporting documents, all carefully annotated and footnoted. Reading what these boys and the other inmates experienced is horrifying.

Yet, the reader leaves on a positive note, because both of these boys, as men, were able to create new and productive lives, a testament to the resilience of their humanity, and a lesson about what can be accomplished in life despite an experience of the worst that humankind can inflict on one another.

I highly recommend this book with the caveat that it is not sparing in its recounting of what Kalman and Leopold and millions others experienced at the hands of the Nazi regime. It does not whitewash or excuse any of the crimes that were perpetrated, or diminish their impact. We must never forget, but we can heal.

Not Banned Here – Anne Frank's Diary, The Graphic Adaptation by Ari Folman and David Polonsky

Earlier this year, I volunteered to read and assess book candidates for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, something I plan to do again. It was time well spent.

To continue my involvement with the Mark Twain House and Museum (go, if you're anywhere near Hartford, CT, or visit https://marktwainhouse.org). I just joined their Goodreads group, and it seems especially fitting to have started with Anne Frank's Diary, The Graphic Adaptation.

Why? Three reasons: Anne Frank is one of my lifelong heroes, the hate and evil of anti-Semitism is rapidly rising once again, and this is one of the "banned books" in certain school districts and libraries in some states. Reading and supporting books like this one is a way to fight back against that outrageous ignorance.

Putting all that aside, I loved this adaptation of Anne's diary and highly recommend it for adults as well as for older children and teens. I consider it an excellent adjunct to the diary, and depending on the age of the reader, and their familiarity or lack of, it could serve as an introduction or an epilogue. I see it engendering family and reading group discussions and would hope it would also be taught in schools, though the very places where it is most needed are most likely the ones that have banned it.

This adaptation presents a narrative of the events that led to, and took place during, the time that Anne and her family, their friends the van Pels, and the dentist Dr. Pfeffer, hid from the Nazis in the attic of the building on the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam where Anne's father had his business. There is also an Afterword that recounts what followed.

The adapter, Ari Folman, and illustrator, David Polonsky, have created a seamless representation of the events and emotions that Anne recorded in her diary, and expand on the key themes that come through in any reading of the original material: Anne's quest to know herself, the complexity of her relationships with her family members and the others in hiding, her search for meaning in a world gone mad with hate, and her need to contradict that evil with her belief in the essential goodness of (most of) humanity. 

May her memory, and that of all the people who perished at the hands of the Nazis, and by all extremists, be for a blessing.

Parrots, Pugs, and Pixie Dust – A Book about Fashion Designer Judith Leiber by Deborah Blumenthal

A charming picture book for older children (and adults) about the life and work of Judith Leiber, who was truly the mistress of the handbag, or as she was also known, the Queen of Minaudières. Her exquisitely detailed crystal-covered evening bags came in every conceivable shape from animals to food to icons, and were carried by First Ladies, movie stars, opera divas and many others.

While Leiber lived a long life, she had known the poverty and tragedies that came with being Jewish in World War II Hungary. At the end of the war, however, she met a young American serviceman and the two married. She joined him on his return to the United States and they lived a long life together, dying at home just hours apart, after a marriage that lasted 72 years.

Examples of Leiber's handbags can be found today in museum collections around the world – or you can buy one, if you can afford it. Meanwhile, you can enjoy this delightful book and inspire a child with Leiber's story.

Shanghai Secrets – The Song of the Jade Lily by Kirsty Manning

Many of us living in the United States, whether we are of European (Ashkenazic) Jewish background, or not, are only dimly aware at best of the Jewish community that formed in Shanghai, China as World War II began. And, even if we know a bit about that, we probably know even less about Jewish emigration to Australia.

Here is a vivid and beautifully-crafted novel that brings that all into focus. A professional-class Jewish family flees their home in Vienna immediately after Kristallnicht and travels to Shanghai to find refuge. Their young daughter, Romy, horrified by the murders and losses she has witnessed, gradually becomes enthralled with her new milieu, but memories of her past are never far away.

Paralleling Romy's story is the contemporary one of her granddaughter, Alexandra. Alexandra has traveled to Melbourne from her job as a successful commodities trader and dealmaker in London to spend time with her elderly grandparents as her grandfather, Wilhelm, spends his last days. She is unusually close to her grandparents because they raised her after her parents were killed in an accident when she was a child, but Alexandra, who was told her mother was adopted from China, has many unanswered questions about her heritage. The research she has done so far has led to dead ends, and she hesitates to question her grandmother too closely while she is mourning.

When an opportunity to work in Shanghai opens up, it is a chance for Alexandra to move on from an unsuccessful romantic relationship in London, and to quietly go forward with the family research that is so important to her.

The stories of these two generations of women are enmeshed in a finely constructed, wonderfully descriptive narrative that carefully unmasks the secrets Romy and Wilhelm felt they needed to keep, and brings the closure Alexandra is seeking. And, for the reader, there is a great deal to learn and understand. Australian author Kirsty Manning has written a wonderful book, and I am hoping to find and read her debut novel, The Midsummer Garden, which has not been released here. There is another book coming in 2020, so far called The Lost Jewels – looking forward to that.

The Good and the Evil – The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman

"Where there is life, there is hope." This quote, attributed to the playwright Publius Terentius Afer, known as Terence, was an African slave who was brought to Rome in the second century BCE by the Senator Terentius Lucanus. It is so fitting a summary of this remarkable novel.

The lyrical Alice Hoffman evokes the darkest days of the Holocaust, in her novel about Ava, a golem (in Jewish folklore, a clay creature brought to life through sacred magic) created in secret by Ettie, a rabbi's teenaged daughter, for the responsibility of protecting a young girl in her escape from Berlin to Paris. With payment from the mother Hanni to watch over her daughter Lea, Ettie and her sister Marta join the two on a dangerous train ride out of Germany.

Hoffman is a master of both magical realism and the historical novel, and they have never come together more convincingly or beautifully than they do here. Hoffman does not spare the reader from the horrors of the roundups, murders, rapes and tortures that are committed by the Nazis and their French collaborators, but she also evokes the humanity of love, compassion, kindness and generosity that were the hallmarks of the Resistance fighters, both French and Jewish, and those that assisted them.

Ava is the most extraordinary character, a quasi woman of clay, who has superhuman strength, understands the speech of birds and forest animals, and learns complex tasks almost instantaneously. Her evolution is the center of the novel, but there are other very interesting characters.

Lea grows from a petulant, sullen and frightened girl of twelve, who exposed to the enormous trials of the war, then becomes a sensitive young woman who is adult before her time. Julien, the spoiled, immature teenaged son of the distant cousins who take her and Ava in when they reach Paris, evolves into a resourceful young man who follows his older brother into a Jewish Resistance group. And then there is Marianne, a young woman from the distant countryside, the maid in Julien's parents' household, who returns home and becomes a leader in spiriting Jews and others in hiding over the border into Switzerland. Marianne is, of course, the name for the symbol of the common people of France, evoking the principles of liberty, egality and fraternity. Hoffman picked a most appropriate name for her.

There is an amazing amount to absorb in The World That We Knew, and being openminded to the idea that good can conquer evil, and that there are things in this world that may be beyond what we normally comprehend, are vital for a full appreciation. On the other hand, reading, or listening to this work, will hopefully allow some minds to suspend their cynicism and disbelief.

I was delighted to see that the reader of the audio book version is the acclaimed actress Judith Light, who has given a remarkable reading, voicing not just the characters, but delivering the French and German place and personal names with care, and occasional snippets of Hebrew prayers with gravity.

The Bialy Eaters: The Story of a Bread and a Lost World by Mimi Sheraton

Accomplished food and travel writer Mimi Sheraton published this book 18 years ago. It is a touching and often fascinating look at a nearly-vanished world. Bialys were made by a multitude of Jewish bakers in Bialystok, Poland before WWII. When nearly all of the Jews of Bialystok were murdered in the Holocaust, most aspects of their culture also died, except for the few survivors who dispersed to places as far-flung as Argentina, Australia, Israel, France and, of course, New York. 

While this is the story of a unique food item, it is more the story of the people who baked and ate bialys, and how that food tied them together in the memory of a shared experience.

One of the survivors Sheraton interviewed was Samuel Pisar, who wrote an acclaimed account of his experiences. His book, Of Blood and Hope, is next on my reading list. One book leads to another.