The author began her article with the words “It had been nearly 50 years since I read The Diary of a Young Girl.” Perhaps it is time for a re-read.
The Globe and Mail published a much derided piece on Wednesday entitled Lessons in living from Anne Frank, in which the author compared her own experience living in Canadian lockdowns during COVID to the 15-year-old Dutch-Jewish girl who lived in an attic for over two years before dying of typhus in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp in Nazi Germany in 1945.
The Globe and Mail originally shared the piece on Twitter saying, “I’m channelling Anne Frank’s spirit in lockdown.” After the predictable backlash, the outlet added to the thread, “Clarification: Lessons in living from Anne Frank.”
Clarification: Lessons in living from Anne Frankhttps://t.co/6hKQzxeCoY
— The Globe and Mail (@globeandmail)
The author wrote, “As my COVID fatigue has gotten the better of me in recent weeks I started to say to myself, ‘What would Anne do?’ or ‘How would Anne describe this time?’ and ‘How would she cope?’” As if somehow being stuck at home with Netflix and Amazon Prime is comparable to hiding in a 400 sqft. annex with seven other people unable to leave, unable to speak for two years for fear of being discovered by Nazis and being sent away via cattle car to their death.
The article has since been deleted by The Globe, with the outlet citing that the piece did not meet editorial standards.
An essay about Anne Frank and lockdown has been removed because it did not meet our standards. We apologize for this error.
— The Globe and Mail (@globeandmail)
The author spent the bulk of the article comparing her own diaries written over the course of a lifespan 47 years longer than the Jewish teenager, to the story of survival published by a grieving father, so that the world would know of the atrocities committed by the Nazis and so that his daughter could posthumously become a published author.
The author wrote of her first diary entry about “Ted Kennedy and the crash at Chappaquiddick” and her follow up entries about being able to watch “Michael Jackson and the rest of the Jackson 5 would be on The Ed Sullivan Show.” Frank wrote about a desire to return to school, become a writer and other tragically unfulfilled ambitions.
Apparently, the "worst" family “secret” the author of the Globe and Mail piece had to "endure" was that she might be Jewish herself, which she compared to living in the Frank’s annex: "There had been rumours that my grandparents had been Polish Jews who had changed their identity to survive the atrocities of war. Grandpa Schiller (or was it really, Schmonsky?) would never discuss and we will never know. My mother, now in her 80s, remains silent on this subject."
Rather than recognizing how difficult Anne Frank’s short life was and using it to show the Globe and Mail readers how comparatively easy we have it during lockdowns, the author of the piece chose a theme for her article of "tragedy inspiration porn." The author spent the length of the article attempting to make the story of the world’s most famous Holocaust victim about herself. "Not all of what I learned about myself is happiness and light. Many harsh realities have been brought to the surface – a tsunami of memories of all those conversations that could have been handled differently."
The author began her article with the words "It had been nearly 50 years since I read The Diary of a Young Girl." Perhaps it is time for a re-read.
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