Why write a book about a historical figure whose life has been examined from seemingly every possible angle? 

 

That is the question author and literary critic Ruth Franklin asked herself as she embarked on writing a biography of Anne Frank. The compelling answer is contained in the biography itself, The Many Lives of Anne Frank, published in January to glowing reviews. Ms. Franklin expanded on the answer in a lecture for more than 200 Loomis Chaffee students on Tuesday, April 29, in Hubbard Performance Hall.

 

Anne Frank’s chronicle of her life as a Jewish teenager in Amsterdam during World War II, including two years that she and her family spent in hiding during Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, is “the most widely read work of literature to arise from the Holocaust,” according to Ms. Franklin’s publisher, Yale University Press.

 

“I read the diary as a child,” Ms. Franklin told the packed performance hall. “I visited the Anne Frank House, and I thought I knew about Anne Frank.” But she, like the rest of the world, knew Anne Frank as an icon. Ms. Franklin said she wanted to explore the history of the diary and delve into why Anne made subtle changes to her original diary. She said she also sought to find out who Anne Frank really was, “reclaiming her as a human being rather than as a symbol.”

 

Ms. Franklin shared with the audience several revisions Anne made to her diary entries nearly 18 months after she originally wrote them, and shortly before she and her family were arrested and sent to concentration camps. The revisions, she said, revealed Anne’s growing awareness of what was happening to Jews at concentration camps and Anne’s strengthening belief that Jews needed to tell their stories. In the written voice of a maturing young woman, Anne revised the diary to be more engaging and readable for a public audience, Ms. Franklin said.

 

Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the winter of 1945. 

 

Just as comparing the original and revised diary accounts shed light on Anne’s growth as a writer, re-examining her life story adds nuance to an oft-told narrative, Ms. Franklin said. “Important figures need to be revisited at different times in our history,” she said, answering the question she had once asked herself.

 

The author’s talk was followed by a question-and-answer session. Many of the students in attendance studied the events and issues of the World War II era this year as part of their courses in World History and College-Level European History.

 

Ms. Franklin’s visit was made possible by the Rubenstein Family Holocaust Education Fund, established in 2022 by Richard ’65 and Lea Rubenstein to support teaching and learning on the Holocaust and genocide. The event was organized by the Norton Family Center for the Common Good, the Jewish Student Union, and the History, Philosophy & Religious Studies Department.

 

Ms. Franklin is a literary critic and an adjunct professor at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She is a former editor at The New Republic.