When I was in high school — more years ago then I would like to admit — I saw a one-person performance of The Diary of Anne Frank. The actress played all the parts — creating different voices for each character. She sat on a stage in a simple chair — there was no scenery. BTW, this was at Notre Dame Academy, an all-girls Catholic school, not exactly a bastion of liberal thought.
Although it has been more than 60 years, I will never forget the performance and the last act of the play when the Nazis came to arrest Anne and her family. I have, over the years, read the book several times and have learned from it each time. I have visited Anne’s home in Amsterdam and been to Auschwitz.
Anne Frank’s tragic story gave me many insights into life. I have often asked myself the question: What would I have done had I been a German citizen during World War II? Would I have hidden Jews and risked my own survival? Would I have done the right thing in other circumstances?
Now, parents and school board members in several states want to ban students from reading Anne’s diary. Sadly, the result will be a bunch of culturally illiterate adults who live in their own little world with no concept of past injustices. These are the same people who have no idea why it is abhorrent to wave a Nazi flag or wear a swastika. They say that there were good people on both sides in Charlottesville. They say the confederate flag is their heritage.
“Goodbye, Columbus — How an Extreme Minority Has Upended Democracy in Ohio” is an article in the August 15, 2022, issue of The New Yorker magazine written by Jane Mayer. It explains in detail how Ohio is headed in a downward spiral in terms of academic censorship.
Quoted in the article, Casey Weinstein, a second-term Democrat member of the Ohio House, and one of two Jewish members of the Ohio House, points out that Republicans in the statehouse continue to push legislation prohibiting public school teachers from teaching “divisive concepts.” These proposed laws aim is to censor class discussions of the so-called critical race theory — which was never a part of Ohio public school curriculum. The mandate requires that both sides of every issue must be taught, which sounds vanilla until you consider the details.
It would mean that my law school classmate could not explain why he has no extended family. They all died in the Holocaust. According to this theory, “both sides” must be told. So I guess a teacher would have to have someone explain the German side of why my friend’s relatives died. Fortunately, Ohio Republicans put the “divisive concepts” bill on hold after the idea of teaching neutrally about the Holocaust provoked national condemnation.
The bill’s co-sponsor is Sarah Fowler Arthur, a member of the Ohio House since 2021. Fowler Arthur was homeschooled her entire life, never set foot in a public school and elected not to go to college. She is helping to guide Ohio’s policies toward education!
The divisive subjects that these Neanderthals don’t want our children to discuss are things like the Civil War, slavery, the civil rights movement, and of course, the Holocaust. Best to stick with Betsy Ross, I guess. According to the article, the “divisive concepts” bill championed by Fowler Arthur opposes teaching any reading of American history suggesting that “the United States and its institutions are systemically racist.”
I guess I could not tell the students about my experience of riding a segregated train when my family traveled south of the MasonDixon line in the early 1950s. Or when we drove why we had to pack a lunch. No stopping at restaurants in Dixie.
I guess I could not talk about the incident when I was in college and every girl on my dorm floor was invited to a sorority rush party, except me and the other African-American girl on my floor — pretty painful when you are a college freshman and had been lulled into thinking that your dormmates were all your friends.
Cleveland architect Robert Madison could not tell the story of how he was denied admission to the School of Architecture at Case Western Reserve after fighting in World War II — in a segregated unit. Fortunately for Cleveland and architecture around the world, Madison returned to the admissions office the next day in his full military uniform, including a Purple Heart and several medals for valor. He was admitted.
Under the proposed Ohio law, these stories would require the students to hear another side. Of course, I’m not sure what that other side would be other than there was a decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1896 that required “separate but equal” accommodations for persons of different races, that the lily-white sororities didn’t want any Black members, and Case didn’t admit Black students.
As David Pepper, former chair of the Ohio Democratic party, an election law professor, and onetime Cincinnati city councilman, says in Mayer’s article, the efforts to control the school curriculum in Ohio are “very similar to the meltdown in democracy in other places.”
In November, Ohioans will go to the ballot box to select members of the Ohio legislature. Most voters won’t pay much attention to the candidates for the state legislature. Or they won’t vote at all. Voters show up in greater numbers in presidential election years. But they fail to realize the importance of our state legislature. What is decided by the Republican controlled state legislature directly impacts our daily lives. How our electoral votes will be counted in the next presidential election will be decided by the same Ohio legislature.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Ohio voters are fiddling while democracy is being torched in the Ohio legislature. We may think that banning Anne Frank is not important. But it’s a first step down a slippery slope. And suddenly we discovered that we no longer live in a democracy and folks are burning books.
If you can get a copy of the August 15, 2022 issue of The New Yorker to read the entire article — “Goodbye, Columbus,” you won’t be sorry. It is a serious foreboding of the future of democracy in Ohio and ultimately America. And stop by your local library and pick up a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank — while it’s still on the shelf. That way you can decide for yourself whether it is subversive and dangerous to our children’s education and maybe learn a little something about yourself in the reading.
C. Ellen Connally is a retired judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court. From 2010 to 2014 she served as the President of the Cuyahoga County Council. An avid reader and student of American history, she serves on the Board of the Ohio History Connection, is currently vice president of the Cuyahoga County Soldiers and Sailors Monument Commission and past president of the Cleveland Civil War Round Table. She holds degrees from BGSU, CSU and is all but dissertation for a PhD from the University of Akron.
4 Responses to “The Importance of Anne Frank by C. Ellen Connally”
Mel Maurer
Thanks for this Ellen. As you know, Lincoln once said that it isn’t history unless it’s true and these book banners and others like them are taking tehtrunth out of American history, tryingg to remake it into one that supports there extreme right wing views.
bonnie thiel
Thank you – this column is itself an antidote to censorship.
In Germany, there are many holocaust memorials because the people don’t want to forget. These memorials are not divisive, they provide protection against attempts to re-write history.
Donna M. Shimko
This latest right-wing atrocity saddens and sickens me. I have read and re-read Anne’s diary countless times, and I credit the diary with so much that inspired and sustained me throughout my long life. If we give in to these book-banners, we are one step closer to the fascists who committed genocide – and the people who shamefully looked the other way. Here is a poem I wrote after seeing the Diary performed at Playhouse Square in 2017:
Never Again / Never Lose Hope
I saw The Diary of Anne Frank last night.
I’ve read the book countless times since I was 11.
I’ve seen two cinematic productions and documentaries as well.
I still feel that sense of an incalculable loss…
The first time I read the Diary, I didn’t know what had happened to Anne.
I remember reading her last entry, turning the page – feeling that shock of an epilogue
Wanting to turn back the page and have it not be real, not be revealed
Every time, I wish with Miep Gies that the Franks, the Van Pels family and Dr. Pfeffer could have been saved –
– that all the six million could have been saved –
– even though Anne’s Diary would have been lost to the world.
But I read it, I see it – and I feel the loss anew each time.
Never Again – to keep eternal vigilance that those unimaginable atrocities will never happen again; although different ones are happening every day
Never Lose Hope –
Anne’s words of hope, encouragement, love and faith keep me going when I feel imprisoned in the Annexe of my own despair
‘…still believe that people are really good at heart’
Anne’s words of her realistic view of human nature give me a perspective on the world when my idealism is conquering my rationality
‘There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder…’
Never Again / Never Lose Hope are tattooed on my heart and soul.
Laura Kennelly
Appreciated your observations. I’m glad I’m not there only one to wonder if I would’ve had the guts to do what people who protected some of the Jewish people during that era. I hope I would have.