Anne Frank's "Best Friend" Recalls Intense Girl

Anne Frank's status as a symbol of the Holocaust has overshadowed the reality of a girl eager to discover the world around her, a close childhood friend said.

Jacqueline van Maarsen said that while the use of Frank's name to fight anti-Semitism had been very effective, it inadvertently made her larger-than-life.

"Anne as a little girl was lost," Van Maarsen said during an interview in Budapest where she was presenting the Hungarian version of her book "My Name is Anne, She Said, Anne Frank" published in English in 2007.

Anne Frank was 15 years old when she died of typhus in Germany's Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945.

In her famous diary, Frank called Van Maarsen her "best friend," but the 79-year-old former artistic bookbinder said she was long reluctant to publicly claim the title.

"I wanted to have my own identity, I didn't want to go through life as Anne Frank's friend," Van Maarsen said in the Monday interview.

She said Frank was an extroverted girl whose intensity and the demands she made of their friendship were nearly overwhelming.

"She claimed me as her best friend and she didn't want me to be with other girls," Van Maarsen said. "She thought she was the center of the universe but I wasn't like that."

Dutch director Ben Verbong is making a film based on Van Maarsen's book, a project currently in the casting stage.

Comments

[snarkopolitan]

Anne Frank's reality is sharpened by seeing her as a breathing person, rather than a symbol. A symbol's suffering is far less poignant to me than the reality of this girl, an extraordinarily sensitive and observant writer but still a very human teenage girl.

The woman who is giving us this new account of Anne shows her behaving no differently than millions of other teenagers do. Admiring Anne in all her reality is more of a tribute to her than sentimentalizing her.

[causticgit]

Reading Anne Frank's diary reveals a girl who had her moments of squabbling and nastiness, just like any other teenager. She wasn't always the nicest person to be around, and she chronicles some truly 'teenage' moments, when her mother is just being SO unfair! This friend's account doesn't surprise me, and it doesn't have to be vicious.

I admire Anne as a girl with ideas that were precocious for her time. If she had lived, I think she would have been a part of the womens' liberation movement.

[AliLiz]

This 'best friend' should have stayed in the background...forever.

Ann Frank was a wonderful young girl who wrote well. lived a sad life, and grew up to be a role model for teens as well as adults. Let her memory remain positvie.

[SILVANUS]

In any event, Anne's brief life and gift of words to us is extraordinary.

[LMPE]

While I've never read Anne Frank's diary, I have read numerous other books about the Third Reich and about other genocides (towards the American Indians, Africans, Vietnamese, Eastern Europeans under Soviet domination). Had Anne Frank survived the Third Reich, I like to think that she more than anyone would have become the world's primary voice for the voiceless. Maybe she would have attended the March on Washington. Maybe she would have gone to Vietnam to expose US actions there. Maybe she would now go to Iraq.

But this is all hypothesis. I'm sure that she was a fine human being.

[snarkopolitan]

Never read her diary? What you've missed! I still remember images she used, and I haven't read it for decades. She was passionate, observant, and also wryly funny. She gives a description of a typical day for her in the secret annexe that leaves out nothing, including being called back to the bathroom to clean the sink of several of her hairs, which "decorate the sink in graceful curves". She experiences her first crush, her first period, worrying for her father, fighting with her mother, all completely identifiable emotions, all sharply observed and recorded.

It's very readable, aside from the symbolic and poignant aspects. It isn't dry history. You should set aside a little time and read it, instead of commenting in a vague but well-meaning way on someone you only know third-hand.

[PhyllisJane]

Sounds like just another sound bite to make $$$. Maybe not for Van Maarsen, but for the publishers & the film makers.

[Ladyrantsalot]

This woman gives us another snapshot of [her version of] the past. One of the many wonderful things about Anne's diary is that we watch her grow up under such difficult circumstances. Perhaps, like most intelligent 12-year-olds, she was intense and self-absorbed when she went into hiding. By the end of the diary, she is telling us that, in spite of the horrible world surrounding her, she believes that "people are basically good at heart." This woman's testimony simply fills in a few gaps in a story we already know about someone beginning to mature and develop a sense of empathy, but who never had the chance to live to full adulthood.

[JimGroom]

Last time I checked all young teenagers believe they are the center of the Earth.
Anne Frank should be considered a hero to young people today, but I'm afraid that nothing of importance is being taught in schools today. A shame really.

[robin50]

You're definately right about things they don't teach in school. I think The Diary of Anne Frank was required reading in eight grade lit. The Grapes of Wrath and To Kill a Mocking Bird in high school lit. I've reread many of the books I read back then to see them through what I hope are adult eyes.

But off the subject a bit here, there are several things I can think of right off hand that is lacking in education. If kids walk they certainly don't know which side of the street to walk on and to walk in single file. They do not know how to make change. Just give one a penny after they have rang up register for change and watch them fuddle around. The list goes on and on but firgured I should retrain myself!

[fiorastar]

I don't know about that. Not only does my high school sophomore know the Diary of Anne Frank from middle school, but she gave up every single afternoon and weekend from late August through November 4th to help with the Obama campaign and register new voters. What is important? To me it is learning courtesy and respect for one another and oneself--as well as for the Earth we live on and other beings without human voices. Her high school, as well as the other schools I have sent her to teach those things. Another important thing is to learn to think through problems from all angles, incorporating other perspectives and different modalities and fields of knowledge. Her schools have taught that. Foreign language and culture? Yes. Music, theater, and art? Absolutely--and they teach poise, problem solving, teamwork, mathematical and scientific thinking, as well as appreciation for beautiful works.

Let's not get all down on schools "these days". Many are struggling due to lowered budgets and higher expectations--teachers are underpaid and have far too many students to work with. But somehow, many of them are doing well. Let's celebrate and acknowledge the successes!

Obama was helped in his election by a literal army of teenagers armed with clipboards volunteering after school. They were taught in their schools that community service and good citizenship are required of them. They lived that out and experienced the amazing success of hard work. Our teens have lots to hope for.

[levibatgirl]

Ann Frank went into hiding with her family when she was barely 13.

After 2 years they were discovered and sent to a concentration camp where she died at age 15.
This friend of hers had not seen her since she was probably between 12 and 13 years old.

Yet she criticizes her for being intense and possessive? These traits of Ann's are not unusual for a very bright young girl of 12.

I didn't sense any affection coming from this woman for her young friend.
Age doesn't automatically bring wisdom and understanding.

[poochytown]

Oh, give her a break. This concerns Van Maarsen's life, her memories and her opinions about them. Who are you to judge?

[tjshire]

There is hardly anything in the very brief article above that struck me as disrespectful or critical of Anne Frank. Words like 'intense' and 'possessive' hardly rate on a scale of pejoritives. Instead, we are getting a somewhat fuller picture of a girl who experienced what no one should have to experience.

And asserting that van Maarsen shows little affection for her childhood friend is too big a leap to take based on a 200-word synopsis of a book and movie deal. On the basis of such flimsy evidence, implying that van Maarsen may lack wisdom and understanding disrespects both van Maarsen and the memory of Frank, who I doubt would so quickly jump to conclusions.

[Kitzy]

Well, I agree with levibatgirl.

There's something odd about saying she didn't want to be connected with Anne (a HERO) all her life, yet now she's claiming 'best friend' status and *criticizing* Anne.

Why be negative about this poor child who lost her life at such an early age, yet left the world an invaluable account of her ordeal?

Sounds like jealousy to me, plus the chance to make some $$ off the connection. But the memoir should be celebrating a dear childhood friend--not putting her down. Who needs to hear that?

[eminent]

My eighteen yr old daughter just got back from a voluntary school visit to Aushwitz. It has taking days with lots of tlc and gentle talks for her to believe again in her fellow man.She did say it has changed her.

[renatam]

Her next stop might be "Wounded Knee" right here in America. Or, the entry point in South Carolina where it is estimated 40% of the African SLAVES were brought to our shores - that has only a bench, courtesy of Toni Morrison, as a memorial. That, of course, doesn't count the millions who died in the holds of ships like rats - of disease and immense suffering -- during the "Middle Passage."

[ToonMoene]

Perhaps the best way to remember Anne Frank is to realize she was a contemporary of Dr. Martin Luther King (he being from 15/1/29, she being from 12/6/29. Both were two years older than my parents.

One of them survived WW II - because he was a citizen of the US of A. I wouldn't be so sure he'd survived the war if he had lived in Europe.

I hope we have left race based hatred behind us, now.

[Blain]

When I was in high school I read a book called "Night" by Elie Weisel, which I also think is a good book to read. I read it in High school and it gave me an entirely different view of the Holocaust.

More info

http://www.holocaust-trc.org/night.htm

[Marshabio02]

Thank you. Just went over to Amazon and purchased.

[jparso3]

Thanks for mentioning that I too read that in high school. It was on the best books that I have read up to that point. Unfortuntly my classmates hated it.

[thebluecrayon]

Very intense and depressing but also one of the best books.

[TXFF5000]

We should learn about all groups of people who suffered in the last century under both Nazism as well as under Soviet Communism.

More publicity should be given to East Europeans who suffered not only under Nazism but also during Stalinism and the 45 years after WWII under Bone Crushing Soviet rule.

The media should give more reports on the Holodomor which is the genocide of 7 to 10 million Ukrainians under the Soviet Union.

Having said this, we should continue to learn about Anne Frank and be on guard against Anti-Semitism. The recent tragedy in India shows that Jews are not even safe over there.

[c-lupa]

EXCELLENT POINT. There were many genocides in the 20th century, including Stalin's deliberate starvation of 10-14 million Ukrainians in 1933 to break them into falling in line with Soviet communism. Western reporters at the time, like Walter Duranty, the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the NY Times, covered up and Bill O'Reilly-style shouted down any reporters who claimed there was a famine in the "Worker's Paradise." The one reporter who dared to report the truth and lost his cushy career for it, was the young idealistic Welshman Gareth Jones.
http://www.garethjones.org/
(It's amazing how a college history paper can stay with you.)

There are so many incredible people during dark times who need to be remembered, not only for the sake of remembering their courage, but as examples to live by. It's still shocking how so many in the press and government rolled over during the first four years of the Bush administration, letting him have his way with our civil liberties, our personal privacy as well as attacking environmental protection, social programs, and instilling that destructive educational abomination, No Child Left Behind. Shame. Shame. Shame.

[judesedit]

I agree c-lupa. I blame Congress for much of what has happened to this country. They didn't want to mess anything up for themselves as far as reelection goes, so let this fraudulent administration reek havoc. I hope they are all unseated, except for Kucinich and Wexler. There may be a few others who tried to do right and I wish them to stay, also. Starting a preemptive invasion and occupation has sent the wrong message to our children and the world. They now think it is acceptable to kill before finding out the truth. Since we did not do what should have been done prior to these disastrous outcomes, we should all be reprimanded, too. A unified march on Washington may have prevented some of it.

[chaos4700]

What happened in Mumbai has less to do with anti-Semitism and more to do with foreign affairs. The attackers were targeting Israelis, British and Americans, not Jews -- there is a subtle distinction. The attacks on Mumbai, atrocious as they were, were a reaction to the policies of the alliance of the aforementioned national governments. Don't conflate this sort of terrorism with the Holocaust -- it only serves to obfuscate the real motives and ultimately grants these criminals a smokescreen which prevents us from properly analyzing what their next move might be.

[stillfresh]

'scuze me. The attack on the Jewish center was most assuredly an attack on Jews.

[booksnmore4you]

A fabulous book to teach in the classroom!!

[thegirlnextdoor]

Hay, I thought I 'm the centre of the universe!