Posted on 01/28/2010 8:29:57 PM PST by ozguy
Culpeper County public school officials have decided to stop assigning a version of Anne Frank's diary, one of the most enduring symbols of the atrocities of the Nazi regime, after a parent complained that the book includes sexually explicit material and homosexual themes.
"The Diary of a Young Girl: the Definitive Edition," which was published on the 50th anniversary of Frank's death in a concentration camp, will not be used in the future, said James Allen, director of instruction for the 7,600-student system. The school system did not follow its own policy for handling complaints about instructional materials, Allen said.
The diary documents the daily life of a Jewish girl in Amsterdam during World War II. Frank started writing on her 13th birthday, shortly before her family went into hiding in an annex of an office building. The version of the diary in question includes passages previously excluded from the widely read original edition, first published in Dutch in 1947. That book was arranged by her father, the only survivor in her immediate family. Some of the extra passages detail her emerging sexual desires; others include unflattering descriptions of her mother and other people living together.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
My sister played Anne Frank in high school.
Not a dry eye in the theater, she was so good. Boy was I popular for awhile!
Anne died before the war was over. She didn’t do any editing after the war.
See #21
I did and when I reread your posts it was clearer. The way 9 and 10 were worded made it sound as if she was editing it after the war ended. Sorry for the confusion.
That was my understanding of that post as well.
No one here is saying that she didn’t want her diary published. My point was if her family felt it was important to leave out things that would have been private (sexual), that should not have been included in any later versions.
Agreed!
I was in the Ann Frank House when I was in Amsterdam and the area where they hid.
Really? How sobering, actually BEING there.
When my sister was doing “Diary of Anne Frank” she’d come home from rehearsals just sobbing from holocaust stories of human-skin lampshades, etc.
She told us nothing about the play til we actually saw it, and we were thunderstruck by the story, her performance as Anne, and the fact that she was able to keep it all secret. It changed her life, that production.
It made her so grateful to be alive.
Many of my neighbors when growing up were in the concentration camps
So you’ve ALWAYS known the truth.
Did your neighbors talk to you and your folks about it?
I remember the first hand stories.
Including the Orthodox Rabbi and his wife.
For your young ears to hear first-hand stories must’ve had quite an impact. No wonder you were so politically savvy in school!
When we first moved here to SD, I freelanced for Walker-Scott and the art director, Irmgard (Irmy) was from Germany. She spoke of her German friends, who circulated the paintings of their Jewish artist friend who was captured by the Nazis. Am not sure if she survived.
Irmy felt such shame, as if she could’ve done anything about it! The most they could do was preserve their friend’s artwork, and even that was risky, moving it around. Wish I’d asked her more questions.
“Censoring normal healthy 13-year-old sexuality out of this historical diary is no more defensible than censoring religion out of US history text books. Both are intellectually dishonest.”
Oh please. When it comes to kids, assigning age appropriate books is essential. If the older version is more age appropriate, and parents agree, then that is what the schools should use. If you feel that your child should read the unabridged version, you are free to assign that version to your child in addition to the schools version or as part of a home school assignment. The kids have their entire lives to read the newer version, when they are better equipped with the maturity to handle more adult themes. Good for this school administrator for actually using her brain, instead of passing the buck through the endless web of bureaucracy. She acted quickly and decisively and honored parents wishes. We need to protect the innocence of our children, and doing so is absolutely NOT “intellectually dishonest”.
This was assigned for an eighth grade English class. It’s perfectly “age appropriate” for 13-14 year olds to be reading the diary of a normal 13 year old without it being censored. And BTW, the initial reports were incorrect. The book has not been “pulled” from the classroom or school. The eighth graders completed the original assignment and the school district is going have a committee review this and other books before the next school year, to come up with a list of books approved for use, which will allow parents to review before the school year starts.
First of all, If the parents feel that the original version is more appropriate, that is well within their rights as parents. It is THEIR JOB to censor things their kids are exposed to. It is also their job to teach kids about adult subjects when THEY feel it is appropriate.
The original version that her father published in 1947 is not “censored”. Get a grip. According to your logic, should every publisher be required to print original manuscripts of every author, without any editing and let 13 year olds read it? Otherwise it is censorship? Are there any limits to what we should allow 13 year olds to read?
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