Jeremy Collins
David Barnouw is an independent scholar and emeritus researcher, and former director of communications at the Dutch Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He has written dozens of articles on World War II, and more than 15 books, including his latest called The Phenomenon of Anne Frank.

David, thanks for joining us… Though most of our listeners know about Anne Frank and her diary, can you give us an overview... why, and when did Anne start writing?

David Barnouw
She started to write a diary, but it was not in a diary. It was in a so-called notebook. This was two weeks before they went into hiding. We're talking about June 1942, and she decided not to use it as a poems book, but decided as a diary and especially when she, one day, two weeks after she got it, they moved into hiding.

And then she realized, yeah, these are exceptional times. So I want to write about it. And then it became a diary, and she wrote in it, until the end. Until the Germans invaded the house and arrested them.

Jeremy Collins
So over this two year period that she's in hiding with her family and others, they're become different versions of the diary or addendums to it. Can you please explain where these different versions come from and sort of clarify where they recreations, where they edited volumes? What are these versions?

David Barnouw
And she was just writing almost every day in her diary. The only contact with the outside world had to help us. But also the radio beams from London, where the Dutch government in exile had her own program, mostly daily. Half an hour. An hour, I don't know. And at one time, in March 1944, the secretary of education was on the air, and he told the audience in the Netherlands that after the war, he thought the war will be over soon.

They want to establish an institute to document the war and occupation and not only documents of, of, ministers, the Queen or etc., but also common people and also letters from people and diaries from people. Anne is writing about that, what she heard on the radio. And she also writes down that everybody looked at me, my diary.

And then she was thinking, yeah, they are interested in my diary. And a few weeks later she is thinking about. Yeah, they want my diary, but I had to make a book from it. And then she starts to rewrite her whole diary of her own diary. Rewrite it, skip things, put more things in it. So we have two versions of.

Yeah, one life in hiding.

Jeremy Collins
No, she wasn't alone in keeping a diary while hidden in the annex. Correct?

David Barnouw
Her elder sister Margot also had a diary. We know that from Anne Frank's diary that, at one time, they. Yeah, they were going to read each other diary, so that's why we know it. But that got lost. It was never... Never found.

Jeremy Collins
Leads me to my next question. How did Anne's diary come to light? You reference the invasion, the raid on the annex, and the deportation of the Frank family and their compatriots who were sent to camps. So how does Otto Frank, who's the sole survivor of his family, how does he get Anne's diary?

David Barnouw
When the Germans invaded, one German and three Dutch policemen invaded the house. And they were also looking for jewelry. They always thought “Jews are rich.” So, they would find jewelry. And Silberbauer, the German one, he was looking for a suitcase to put stuff in. He found one suitcase, and he found only papers in it.

So he dropped all the papers on the floor. And one day they left the house. Well, the floor was covered with the diary of Anne Frank, her diaries, her first diary and a second diary. And Miep Gies, one of the helpers, collected all the diaries. As soon as the Germans had left. Kept it in a cupboard, waiting until Anne Frank would come back so she could give it back to her.

But Anne didn't come back. Her father also came back. And after some while, it became clear that Anne would never come back and, Miep Gies gave all the diaries to Otto Frank, telling this is the legacy of your daughter. It belongs now to you.

Jeremy Collins
Now, in my dealings with historians and authors and researchers, they always seem to get a glint in their eye when talking about handling original source documentation. You have seen and worked with the diaries. Can you tell me how they actually look for those who have not seen them in person at the Anne Frank House or any of the archives?

David Barnouw
There are different diaries. The most famous one was the first one. It's this, red white checkered, book. That is looks the most like a diary. That used to be a small lock on it with a small key that get lost. The other diaries are just notebooks, and her rewritten version are loose pages. Because at that time, March 44, it wasn't possible to buy real notebooks, but in the office of Otto Frank, there were a lot of loose pages they used for typing.

Activities. So the most famous one is also the one with a lot of pages glued in it. The dates are very different. She put also nice pictures in her diary. It's more a scrapbook than a diary. The first one.

Jeremy Collins
Let's go to Otto Frank. After the war, he is presented with Anne's papers and, how does he come to the decision that they must be published? And. And then tell us a bit about that publication process.

David Barnouw
Otto Frank has lots of questions from friends and a few relatives who survived. What were you doing those two years in hiding? How was it? Etc.. And he saw it. Yeah. My daughter has written it all down. So at first he made some kind of excerpt of the diary. Hundred pages, I think, and send it to friends and relatives.

And then he or all of a sudden. Yeah, this is interesting enough to, to, to make a real publication from it. He had, of course, a problem. There were two diaries, and he couldn't go to her to a publishing house and telling, I'm Otto Frank, you don't know me. And my daughter is Anne.

And you don't know her either. But here are two diaries. Can you make a book of it? Of course, people would say, no, we don't do that. We cannot do that, etc. Yeah. So Otto Frank decided to use a second version as the base of what we now know as The Diary of Anne Frank. But because when the Germans invaded. Anne had not finished her written version.

So Otto used her first version to end the diary. And you can say that The Diary of Anne Frank, what you buy nowadays in the shop is a mix of her first and second version, and it was difficult to get a publishing house, but he had one. You have a publishing house, you have editors. And they also changed things.

Sometimes because in this case, it has to be part of a series who has an, 240 pages, not more. So you have to skip a lot. So it is a combination. Everything written by Anne Frank but changed in not in content, but in combination. Edited form, you can say. Edited partly now, first by herself, then a little bit by Otto Frank and a very tiny bit by the editors of the publishing house.

Jeremy Collins
Now it's clear Otto was driven by his need to commemorate his family through Anne's diary. In Anne's diary, she is, of course, the central figure. But what did Otto do to commemorate the other members of the family who weren't Anne, who didn't draft their own diary?

David Barnouw
It's interesting to see that he did it sometimes by way of censorship. Anne Frank, has written negatively about Germans. You can imagine. But Otto thought and... All that later. The people who were in hiding and were killed were Germans, too. And a lot of our relatives and friends who were killed. But you, German still.

So he changed the word Germans in those Germans. So you can say. Then he also used that, for, Yeah. Commemoration of the people. We are not completely sure what Otto Frank found in the first year about the diary. It was a legacy of his daughter. It was a story of what happens.

And he also decided more people must read it, because it's also a story about a young girl who survives more or less in hiding. And also a story about a young girl who lost her daddy and is very critical of her mother. Quite normal stuff for a young, a young person. So it's not it's [?]...

Yeah, it's my daughter and this is the hiding. And then later on he got more into the ideals of Anne Frank. For a better world, world without war, etc..

Jeremy Collins
Now, David, the book is first published in 1947, and subsequently translated into multiple languages. In 1955, after a radio broadcast and quibbling about directors and playwrights, a play based on the diary premiers, the play finds huge success in the United States at a time when a lot of people did not want to hear about what we now know as the Holocaust.

Can you tell us, the audience, why was this play so popular? Why was Anne Frank the exception?

David Barnouw
Firstly, I think the play, it's also the diary. It's not about the Holocaust, it's about the start of the Holocaust. What I will say, there is no blood on the pages. There are few remarks on the Holocaust, but it's more in. She tells in her dreams she sees a concentration camp, which was with friends of hers.

The play… in the United States became very popular because it wasn't about a terrible time in Europe, but Anne Frank became a, yeah, a very lively American teenager. Who was in hiding. But in the play, you hardly have any idea why they were in hiding. You don't have the idea they were Jewish. That's the reason why they were in hiding.

No, it's kind of, very, Interesting play. Young girl growing up. Love her. Daddy hates her mother. There is even an, singing in the, in the play. And in the end. Yeah. And it's [?] and end. It ends with the arrest of the people. You don't see the rest, but you can hear it.

And then Otto Frank, comes on stage with the diary in his hand and he says, yes, I will give a citation of my daughter. In spite of everything, I still believe in the good goodness of them, of of people. So the people see the play. I say optimistic, very happy. This is happy. And the it doesn't end with, oh, they were killed here.

They were killed there. No, it ends with, happiness. And what also was downplayed in this, play, in the play is that those people are Jewish who had discussions to have a Hanukkah song in the in the play in Hebrew, and they decided not to do it. Otherwise they, the audience would find it very strange. So they did it in English.

You can say that the diary became more, more American. I sometimes say that that Anne Frank was abducted by the Americans, changed into a American teenager in the play and sent back to Europe, where the play was an enormous success, too. It's not only the American audience who loved it, but also the audience in Europe. And there you can say they are much closer to the war.

Of course, then, the Americans and even in Germany, what was divided then already in the East and the West. On the same night, there were the first nights in Eastern Europe, East Germans and West German theaters with, and that had a lot of influence. People either went out complete silent or they applauded for, for five, ten minutes.

So that make a big impression in Europe. This, this American play. And after that, the interest in, in the book, became bigger and bigger and bigger.

Jeremy Collins
A central figure in the history of the players, Meyer Levin, who begins the writing of the script and has, a long, tumultuous relationship with Otto, and, and any Playhouse production house that wants to stage this play. It is ultimately, written by Francis Goodrich and Albert Hackett. What was Meyer's story? What was the problem? And and how has this contributed to the legacy of Anne Frank and the some of the controversy?

David Barnouw
It's a very fascinating story. Meyer Levin was war-- Jewish war correspondent who has been, in Europe, just after the troops, so to say, he has seen the, the camps. He talked to survivors. So it was very, very, very influenced by, what happens? He was one of the first, not the first, but he was the one who was very active in, promoting, the book to be published in, in English.

He had read it in, in Paris, where he was with his wife in the, in the, in the late late 40s, beginning of the 50s and, he pressed Otto Frank, anyone to a publishing house. It has to be, translated into English. And then he went further. He was a playwright, too. He wanted to have a play made of it.

And he said to Otto Frank, I can do that, and also agreed on condition that, you know, writing a play, that's one. But you need to find a a director to, to make the play on stage. And, he wrote a play and the his version was refused by ten or 12 or 13 directors. And then Otto Frank said, okay, we have no deal anymore.

You cannot do this play. We know the version of of, of Meyer Levin because, secretly it has been, been on stage against all odds, it went. His play is much more Jewish, but also much more Zionist. And the Jewishness, Otto Frank could accept, you can say. But the Zionist expect was not not his taste.

And he could also say, yeah, where can you see that's my, little daughter is a Zionist. And when, the, Goodrich Hackett's, play became a success, Meyer Levin became angry and angrier. Sent letters to all the Jewish newspapers. So the New York Times always complaining that his version was suppressed. And now this non-Jewish version became popular.

So that's etc., etc.. He, Yeah, it's it's it's hidden history of the the rest of his life. And it's quite, quite strange. In the beginning he was in good terms with with Otto, but in the end they saw each other in court and, not a good ending.

Jeremy Collins
Now, the Goodrich Hackett version, the play premieres October 5th, 1955, and runs for more than 700 performances on Broadway. It receives the Pulitzer and countless other awards, including the Tony. It's staged in different nations, as you mentioned, including Israel, but not in France, which I thought was interesting when I read in your book, can you give a little bit of Cold War politics, into this discussion?

David Barnouw
It was, a custom that the Pulitzer Prize winner, a play in, in, New York, would go next year in spring. Spring festival in Paris, for for a place, new place. But the State Department, in Washington had, warned against it because that would, bring back anti-German feelings. And at that time, NATO started to build up and NATO, Germany had to be west Germany, of course, had to be part of NATO.

So the head of State Department warned against this, this play, what would influence a good relationships, etc.. It was, of course, nonsense because it went on show in Germany without any consequence for NATO. But it shows that, yeah, everything at that time, was used in the, in Cold War, ideas.

Jeremy Collins
The success of the play leads to, great interest in Hollywood to get the film rights and then, who to direct and of course, who to star as an, 20th Century Fox acquires the rights and it's to be directed by a another documentarian of the war and the Holocaust, like Meyer Levin, the great director George Stevens.

Can you tell us about the process, that Stevens went through in casting, but also in the the set design and any on location elements in Amsterdam?

David Barnouw
It was an interesting job for George Stevens because he himself had been in, in, in one of the documentary, units from the American Army. So he had seen Europe just at the end of the war, of course, and he had filmed a lot and even had filmed for his own, color. They had some color reels with him.

So that's very interesting because Second World War for us is black and white, and he has one of the few, color, types of it. He, was very interested in it. Sent his son to, to Amsterdam to, do research. He saw he himself met Otto Frank. And it's more, much more than. Okay, we're in Hollywood.

Let's roll. We have a movie. It's also exciting for Amsterdam. That that Hollywood would, would come to Amsterdam. And would film there. Not everything, but some of the outside, outside. Parts are filmed in Amsterdam and, filming of the, the house behind. So you call it, that's authorized.

That's what's done in, in Hollywood. They built the house, the annex, it's hundred percent. And the audience could see the different levels where they were living. And, they had built a house as such that they could, show if there was bombing around. It's good. Shudder. So it was really an interesting way of, of a presentation, but but it was more like a play.

You could see all the people doing what they were doing, and they didn't. They couldn't left the house because that was forbidden. So it's more like an, in play. And what was new at that moment... The, the big studios were fighting television or they thought they were fighting television. So they invented for instance, cinema scope the very white movie at that moments.

And strangely enough, when you have this kind of play, it is not, Cinemascope. Nevertheless, it became an interesting movie, but it became a movie. What was further away from the real diary than the play? And I know, there is a trailer for the play, of course, and that's. Yeah. And and it’s in Hollywood the thrill of her first kiss.

Nothing to do with the Holocaust, of course. And, Yeah, it's a made, more and more usual in movies. It made it. First tracks of the movie, and it went into a cinema, as a surprise film to see how the, people reacted. And he his end of the movie was. Anne Frank in Bergen-Belsen, the camp where she would die and audiences were very against it.

They they disliked this and they wanted the end of the of the of the book or the play where it ends without bullets. But when you ended with somebody in concentration camp. So that was, skipped from the it ends now with her last kiss and, the sirens of the of the, police, cars.

Jeremy Collins
Now, you mentioned the Americanization of Anne Frank and the play followed by the film sort of leads to a general acceptance by the masses in the United States as Anne Frank and the typical Holocaust experience, or seeing the Holocaust through these eyes of this young girl. But on the flip side of that is the critique that she had an atypical experience.

For the vast majority of those who suffered in the Holocaust or through Nazi persecution of others, was was brutal and violent and quick. And here we have two years of documentation of growing up. Yes. And hiding and fear, but not the, immediate horror and death. What does that lose to Anne and her legacy? Her her experience as an individual, to cut the play off, to cut the movie off with a seemingly happy ending, or leaving the viewer with, you know, some hope that maybe everything works out all right.

And let's not get to the rest of the story.

David Barnouw
Yeah, it's it is an exceptional thing that a whole family went into hiding and friends with them also. Mostly families were divided. The highest survival rate of Jews in the Netherlands, where babies and toddlers who were given away by their parents. How strange it sounds. Still completely unknown people, mostly, resistance fighters, young students who knew people who would be happy to have a baby.

But the parents had no idea what would happen with their children, but those had a high survival chance. So it's it's a typical, And you have to say that when, when you talk about a diary, on the other hand, did this ending in the play and in the in the movie has been changed in the at the end of the last century.

I mean, did, the movie-- No the play now ends with giving an overview of all the people in hiding and what happened to them. So it's not an happy ending anymore. It's now this is what it was. Seven of the eight people were killed. So, it's now more. Yeah, more closer to history. But whatever you can say, a play is not a book.

And a book can never show how history is. Anne Frank doesn't know a lot about what happens outside. I mean, in, in 1944, nobody knew about Auschwitz. And even if they heard about it, they couldn't imagine that that would be mass slaughter on a, on an hourly basis. So all the knowledge we have is, knowledge from after the war.

Knowledge Anne Frank didn't have.

Jeremy Collins
Reference to legacy. You have a chapter at the end of your book titled Who Owns Anne Frank. We have a statue of Anne Frank outside of our Museum. We unveiled it in 2019, and it's a simple statue of a young woman, a young girl. And we also have a large gallery in our latest, public space Liberation Pavilion.

And it's the entryway to our Holocaust gallery, on our campus. This is done in part because the gateway to the Holocaust and to World War Two for millions of Americans is The Diary of Anne Frank. This is what many schoolchildren are assigned to read in seventh or eighth grade. And it is, like I said, the gateway.

So we have we have certainly been a part of this, and we recognize the value of bringing in an audience, a younger audience, to somebody that they may relate with. So it's it's something that the Museum has not stayed away from. So I don't want to make this sound as if we, we stay in a corner and others are involved in this, but I think it has been effective on our campus.

But what are the challenges to, her legacy or portraying her legacy today?

David Barnouw
It's a difficult question. And, of course, when you started the War Museum here, it's about D-Day. It would be strange D-Day and then Anne Frank. But your museum is much bigger. I can compare to the Imperial War Museum in in London, where the museum is for every war the United Kingdom has been in. So the museum is very big.

When the politicians, so outside the museum, said yes to make a Holocaust wing in a museum. The directors and the staff of the museum protested enormously. That's not our history that's happened. There's nothing-- Nothing to do with the Holocaust. Of course you have to do historical, but they didn't want it. Nowadays, the Holocaust wing at the Imperial War Museum in London is the most visited part of the, of of the museum.

So you see a change in time. They don't have, Anne Frank in, in the museum, to my knowledge. Maybe they have an Anne Frank tree, there are a lot of Anne Frank trees now. They're chestnut. But it's I think it's also, Anne Frank became famous and her all her books were sold million. What, after a play was made to the United States.

So the American side of Anne Frank. How strange it sounds, is important. So why not here, in this museum about the war and, what you say The Diary of Anne Frank can be a gateway. It's for millions of people. The the first and sometimes a last book to read about the war. Holocaust. Yeah. It's not only about the Holocaust.

Otherwise people wouldn't. Who wouldn't buy it? I think, her legacy. Now, I'm an historian, so I'm not something who can predict the future. You can say maybe she will become more Jewish, like in Indian in the renewed place. She's more Jewish. But when Anne Frank becomes the victim of all evil in the world, then her Jewishness will be become smaller.

Because all the other victims in the world are not all Jewish also. And a lot of non-Jews who are victims. So it change in time how the for instance, for the Netherlands, of course, that the book was published for first in in the Netherlands at three four printings. When a play was edited, it was suggested the play would be made in, in America.

A lot of Dutch were very against it. The Americans had to keep their hands off our, our Anne Frank. But when the play... It was famous we we found that we were proud of ourselves but it's very, you can say the Anne Frank house now has 1 million visitors. 40 years ago, Dutch people didn't went to the Anne Frank House.

Only for for tourists. Nowadays, a lot of Dutch people are going there. So you see, there is a change in in appreciation in this case, of Anne Frank.

Jeremy Collins
So was there something on your professional path that led you to this work that, led you to the diaries and your your work with the research institute?

David Barnouw
Strangely enough, it was just by coincidence. My director wanted to make a book from it, and he didn't want to work with his old colleagues the same age. He took two very young, still inexperienced scholars with him to, to do this. And for me, it was also new and Anne Frank itself, I was not so why should I be interested in a 13 year old old girl?

I was interested in what happened after the war, and I still am. If people ask, what do you think of Anne Frank? I say, read a diary. I don't know more than you know when you read the diary, but I'm so interested to what's what happened after all of us and legacy. And that everybody does it on a in a different way.

And she has now a kind of famous person status like what I say, like Kennedy or Elvis Presley and, like that as every few years there is a, a book about who murdered Kennedy, in the Netherlands every three, four years is a book who betrayed Anne Frank the books are never complete, so it's, but that that makes it interesting that that was and and I mean, she would have loved it all this this audience, she writes it herself of them to become famous.

Now that that is, she became famous and she will she will stay famous.

Jeremy Collins
We spoke a lot here about the ending of her story and how it's portrayed differently in plays in the film, but can you tell the audience who may not know what was her ending? In reality?

David Barnouw
They were arrested in, in, in the annex and, arresting, sergeants. So, a big, case and he said, and that's that was the case, what belongs to officers in the German army. And he asked Otto Frank, is it yours? And also said, yes, I've been an officer lieutenant in the German Army in the First World War.

And the attitude of the sergeants changed immediately. It was, of course, double. It was a man who hated Jews. But this officer was a superior, more or less. So he said, okay, take it easy. We don't take you immediately. You can get your belongings. It didn't make a difference to the ending, but they always send Westerbork, transit camp in the Netherlands.

And they went to Auschwitz with the last train leaving the Netherlands. France, which... And there to pass were difference. In the end Otto Frank stayed in the hospital of Auschwitz. The elderly people his wife and other ones who were in hiding were killed. He was in the hospital when, camp was liberated by the Russians.

And a few weeks before, Anne and Margot were sent westwards in a train to back of Belsen because the Germans didn't want any, eyewitnesses alive when the Russians came in. Bergen-Belsen used to be a so-called good camp, of course, was never a good camp. Was better than Dachau or Auschwitz. But at that time it was terrible.

And they had too much. Too many people. No food, no shelter. Diseases were raging, around in the camp. And she and Margot died of typhus in, we don't know exactly when in March 1945. And it's interesting that after the first night of the of the play in Hamburg, it's not far away. Young youngsters went with flowers to back of Belsen, to lay it on the unknown grave, of course, of Anne and Margot.

So the play influenced to show it was the ending.

Jeremy Collins
Two important periods happened, that have affected the protection of her legacy or the protection of how her story is distributed. The passing of Otto Frank in 1980 and then the expiration of the copyright, how is this how does the passing of her father, how does the expiration of the copyright, how does it affect the 21st century and the retelling of Anne’s story, both for good but also possibly for negative, with those who, want to insert doubt or outright denial of the Holocaust and the Anne Frank story.

David Barnouw
Otto Frank died in 1980. He was 90 years old. And to the surprise of my institute, institute of war document. It was called the Institute of War Documentation, at that time only dealing with the Second World War. And it's really as stated: all the diaries of his daughter would go to my institute and we were surprised.

But most of the staff and the other people, okay, Diaries of Anne Frank, we put it in the archives and that's it. But my director had another, had other plans, and he was much more clever than the rest of us. He said, were going to make a book from it. A real book with footnotes to explain what was introduction of chapters about a life of, of the family before they went into hiding?

Maybe about a betrayal. Also, chapters about a denial of the, of the diary, because he said there are two reasons to publish it. It's one of the most famous historical documents of the second World War. And secondly, in the, in the 60s, in the 70s, more and more, people doubt the authenticity of the diary.

When I say more and more, I'm talking about dozens, not about millions, but the few people who doubted the authenticity. Yeah, they got, a lot of publicity. So we also wanted to prove that the diary was written by Anne Frank and by Anne Frank alone. That became, 600 pages book where we shown the difference in her from a first version, the second version, and the first thing you could buy in the, in the shop.

And, was a lot of, footnotes, you know, not necessary to, to use them because who showed when Anne had written the a “d ” and skipped it and put a “T” instead of it. We made a footnote of it, to make a real scholarly book and, all of the introduction, her, chapters, I wrote a chapter about, Holocaust deniers because those, deniers of the Holocaust, they they were very clever.

They thought, if we know that The Diary of Anne Frank is the first and sometimes the last book people reading about this stuff didn't happen. And if you can prove that the book is not is not real, then people will also put up on the Holocaust. So it's kind of stepping stone series, and the book has been used in slander trials in Germany.

So we are happy about that. Your second question is about the copyrights. Problem, of course. Very important in most countries, 70 years after the Author dies, copyright is free. In this case, it's very complicated. With all the other translations done. It's 70 years after the first translation was published, and we are talking about millions and millions, of course.

And the Anne Frank Foundation in Switzerland. Who has who owns the copyrights. Yeah. Is is defending the copyrights. Until now, and I don't know what happens in in ten years time with it at one time, it will be open to all. I think you could say no. The more the better. But you can also make very different versions of The Diary of Anne Frank and that makes it more troublesome.

Then ask people and they say, I've read The Diary of Anne Frank. Which version do you mean? It's, but that's in the future.

Jeremy Collins
Speaking of the future or of the now, I know you're a historian, but in your view, what is Anne Frank's legacy for today's world?

David Barnouw
There is interested documentary made about this before Covid and people are standing in line for the Anne Frank house to get entrance and, 20 of them are asked, why are you standing here? And it's very fascinating because they all have a different answer. There is an an old, old black man from Alabama, and he, he say, I'm here because the fight of Anne Frank is a fight of my parents who have equal, voting rights, education, etc. so he used Anne Frank for the fight in South.

There is there are two monks, from the Dalai Lama. I say he had a fight. Anne Frank is like, for the Dalai Lama. So everybody there's one who says, yeah, I'm here because Anne Frank suffered from the Holocaust and I don't want to happen to it again. So you see everybody has his or her own part of Anne Frank.

And that's also why the book is so, popular. I mean Anne Frank is very young when she's writing, so she doesn't have any strict ideas about religion, politics or whatever. So everybody can take out of the book what he or she wants, believers, nonbelievers, Christians, Muslims, whatever. You can just take a few, few, lines from the book.

Oh, that's my Anne Frank. So that's why it's difficult to predict what will happen with her. I know, and, document very small documents of East German. Well, Anne Frank was also popular and their, school kids ask us, so what's Anne Frank for you? And this is east East Berlin, and one girl says I'm a swimmer.

I want to go to the Olympics and got a medal in name of Anne Frank. And there is a boy. He said, I want to join the army in the name of Anne Frank. So Anne Frank is used for everything by everybody.

Jeremy Collins
The museum's mission here is to tell the story of the American experience in the war that changed the world, why it was fought, how it was won, and what it means today. That last leg of the mission, what it means today is something that we, strive to do through exhibits, but also through programs and interviews to talk about the lasting lessons and legacies, but also the memory of the war.

And David Barnouw, your book, The Phenomenon of Anne Frank, does a wonderful job of getting to this lasting legacy of just one person. But one person who is universally referenced and, admired. So thank you for bringing this this deep backstory to light. Thank you for sharing your insights today. Thank you for being here with us in New Orleans.

David Barnouw
Thank you for having me here.