08 October 2009

Anne Frank video

I could not get this to link, but it would be well worth your time to take a few seconds to do the following: Go onto Youtube's website, and in the search box, enter Anne Frank: the only existing film images. It will bring up a short video taken in July 1941 of Anne Frank's neighbor leaving her apartment building with her new husband (they just got married). Nine seconds into the film, Anne Frank can be clearly seen leaning out of the upstairs window (where she lived) to watch.

It is my understanding that this film (taken after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, but a year before the family went into hiding) was given to her father and ended up in the possession of a Dutch museum which decided to post this on Youtube for everyone to watch. It's very sad because in the couple of seconds she can be seen, she looks like a normal, young teenaged girl happy to be watching her newly married neighbor---but we all know what happened to the family soon thereafter.

I hope the world NEVER forgets what happened to Anne Frank. Every one of us should praise God every day that we are free to live and worship as we choose, but we should never take that freedom for granted.


(The Anne Frank House website (annefrank.org) also has this video available to view.)

4 comments:

  1. I'm going to go check out the video! My father grew up in Germany during the war and the stories he told us were awful. Thankfully, there are still some of us here who remember!!!

    I like your story about your son and his vegetarian stage. My son also use to say he was a vegetarian, only when I was serving chicken for dinner. I would remind him that he liked chicken and he would say, "No, I only like McDonalds chicken, so I'm a vegetarian." Cute things they come up with huh? Enjoy your day!

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  2. I had a great-aunt who lived in Estonia I believe around the same time period. I never knew her but my mother did; my mother said she wouldn't talk much about it but when (I think it was) Stalin and the Soviets took over Estonia my great-aunt and her friend, both of whom were 13, managed to flee the country. They never saw their parents again. I think we in this country too often take our freedoms for granted. The video is very short but it's chilling---I have a daughter who is 15 (like Anne when she died) and a son who is 12 (like Anne in the video). The video was in 1941. Within 4 years that little girl was dead, only because someone else decided that she had no right to live. It's absolutely chilling to think about.

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  3. I saw the video last week. It evokes many emotions: what is, what was, what could have been.
    Like you, I feel VERY blessed to live in the United States of America. We are far from perfect, but I thank God for my many blessings.

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  4. If you think about it, too, if Miep Gies and the other helper (Bep I think her name was) hadn't found her diary scattered all over the floor after the Nazis raided the hiding place, Anne Frank would have been just another nameless victim of the Holocaust.

    It really hits home for me because---and I think all mothers can relate to this---I have children and I can't help but think what if we had been born during that time period, or even during this period but in another part of the world, and had to contend with something like that. I praise God that I have my children---even when they're bad!! I can't imagine going through something like that. I read a really good book I got through Focus on the Family called "Things We Couldn't Say," written by a young Dutch woman who helped hide Jews. It's well worth reading.

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