Gestapo

This morning I finished reading a book that somehow I made it out of high school without reading (my high school was in a really small town). On New Year's Day this year, Justin and I went to the place where we first met, the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Orem, Utah. We each bought ourselves a book to read, and the one I selected was The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank. I am a sucker for WWII stories. I think it's the humanity in them, they were treated as cattle and vermin, yet they were so very human. I will never understand hatred for an entire race of people, or class, or creed.

This book sucked me right in as they all do. She really impressed me with her writings, my journals at her age were all "Oh man, that boy is so cute, I've never liked anyone this much." (SO ANNOYING TO READ THROUGH). But hers have such eloquence, and such maturity of thought. I grew to love her and even though I knew how it ended, I kept desperately wanting and hoping it would end differently. She was such a beautiful person, who lived and breathed who she was. She was wise beyond her years, which I think  happened due to the nature of their situation. To hide out and remain indoors for years would be so difficult. I'm amazed more of her journal didn't dwell on how hard it was. She was still just a teenager during it all, feeling love for the boy whose family was hiding with them; trying to find out who she really was and where she fit in this world. There were several entries that reflected the magnitude of the situation they were in, and what it must've been liked. If she'd been allowed to survive, I think she would've made an even bigger imprint on the world than she has with her death. She was just one of those personalities.

After her journal entries end, and the Afterword starts, my heart just sank this morning. When it talks about the informer for the Gestapo giving up the Frank family, and what happened to them, I started to cry. I have grown to love her through reading her diary. She was so tough through all of it, and was so close to being free. She died in a prison camp less than 2 months before her freedom would've been given to her. At the time she thought all she had in life was gone because she was separated from her father. The rest of her family had already died. The only survivor was her father Otto.

I'm so angry that Nazi's ever existed. Not just because of this book, but because it happened. It boggles my mind, and makes my heart hurt every time I read a story from a survivor or victim of the Holocaust, or think of how it all happened.

How could someone cause so many people to hate and torture others? I know so many of them were scared to not follow Hitler because their fate would be Auschwitz, but I'd like to think that I'd have accepted my fate. At least I'd never have anyone's blood but my own on my hands. I don't think I could live with myself if I had been one of the people responsible for a family's death. I'd rather be in the camp dying with them.

I still can't stop thinking about her, Anne, because she was such a beautiful person, as I'm sure all of the people that lost their lives or were taken to the camps, or hiding, were. In the Afterword, it mentions that their "Secret Annexe" has been preserved so that people can visit and see where the Franks, and their friends stayed for those 2 years before the Gestapo took them. I am putting on my bucket list right now a trip to Amsterdam to see this place. Sure, it will probably be a humbling, hallowing moment in an otherwise fun vacation, but she deserves it. They all deserve to have people fly across the world and pay our respects to what they went through. I am going to make that happen. I need to.

Hatred is a powerful scary emotion. I once dated someone who said he respected Hitler for trying to cleanse the world. If anyone wants his address to punch him in the face, I'd be happy to give it to you. Just say the word. He used to tell me I was so naive to believe that all people are inherently good, and some just get trampled on by life and make awful choices. I am not the one that is naive. It takes courage to love people and to see the good in them, and I choose to follow that path. I promise right now that I will never teach my children to hate, they can learn that on their own if they so choose, but it will not be from me.

I know when I get to heaven, after this life, I'm going to look for Anne Frank. I want to tell her how much I admire her strength.

Have any of you read this book before? What did you think? What are your thoughts on what I wrote?