The Cult of Anne Frank

The Sapling Project website described the project of planting 11 horse chestnut saplings throughout the United States. These saplings were taken from the large tree that grew behind the Secret Annex (and which collapsed from disease in 2010) and cleared for planting this winter. Anne Frank used to look at this tree, as evidenced by several diary entries – the tree represented freedom and nature for her, neither of which she could enjoy while in hiding. The saplings are intended to remind of the horrors of the Holocaust, but also of local discrimination, such as that of race or gender. Some of the locations are: the White House, Liberty Park (Commemorating 9/11), and the Michigan Holocaust Memorial Center. The New York Times article about the fallen tree, which had been sick for a long time and was supposed to be felled, but remained due to protests from neighbors and arborists that the tree is a symbol of hope. The tree was already over 150 years old, and it was supposed to be able to survive about 10 more (give or take 5), and a metal brace (costing $170,000) was built to extend the tree’s life. However, the tree fell despite the brace, and a hot debate ensued: who was at fault? The debate was nasty, employing Holocaust analogies, each party clawing at the other and the tree hanging in limbo: the foundation wanted to take the tree and reuse its wood in symbolic ways, but the local contractor who built the brace has legal possession of the fallen tree.

This article struck me as rather preposterous. I understand that the tree is seen as a symbol of hope, freedom, etc., but when the day is done, it is a tree. Trees fall. Especially old trees. No one can be blamed for that, and it seems ridiculous to waste $170,000 to extend the life of a 150-YO tree by 5-15 years. In fact, it seems silly to me to attach special importance to this tree at all – there are probably thousands of trees surrounding concentration camps that represented freedom and hope to the prisoners, but should we invest such sums of money to protect each of those trees? Should we obsessively protect every little thing that happened across the way of victims of genocide? This reminded me of a trip I took in Russia to the place of exile of the poet Pushkin – the Russians have created such a cult of him that it’s hard to even describe… What struck me most about the place, though, is that it was furnished with things that, as the guide stated proudly “were not Pushkin’s, but where from the time when he lived and are probably similar to those he may have owned or used”…. This tree issue reminded me of this excursion and the obsession of preserving things that are not really that special. The tree did was not special for 100 years before Anne Frank, why should it become such an expensive object after? It is one thing to preserve the Secret Annex, where Anne Frank and her family hid for years, it is another to get all up in arms about a tree that happened to be nearby and that she happened to look out at…

The Jewish Chronicle article, if it could be called that, reaffirmed my previously stated opinion – it is unhealthy to obsess. A “suspicious” fire destroyed a barrack where Anne spent some time before being sent off to Auschwitz; an executive director of the Anne Frank Trust UK states that “it is sad that this important historical site is now lost.” First of all, the article does not detail any of the facts which render the event ‘suspicious,’ so the article loses credibility and importance in my eyes from the very first sentence. Secondly, “the buildings were sold in 1957 and were used to store farm equipment before the fire,” so they were clearly not that crucially important.

I think preserving traces of history is incredibly important – I enjoy museums and I think they are a great resource, but obsessing over every little object is not conducive to learning – it hinders it. Obsessing over the past prevents us from living actively in the present and preparing for the future, which in my opinion is even worse than what everybody fears: forgetting the past. The cult of the Diary, in my opinion, has gone too far – in remembering how Anne Frank longed for freedom by gazing out at a chestnut tree, we forget how millions of people exactly like us were herded to gas chambers, shot into mass graves, tortured, dehumanized, demoralized, and cruelly executed. By being “sad” when “important historical sites” used for storing farming equipment are lost, we focus on past events, and we can easily turn a blind eye to current events – the Holocaust is going on today just as it did in the ‘40s, just with different qualifiers. There are so many more important things to spend money and attention on than diseased trees or farm equipment storage barracks, but it’s so much easier to focus on the past than to actively fight in the present for a better future…