The Girl Least Likely To

I read her diary, like I'm sure we all did in grammar school, but seeing her moving image in the short video below made Anne Frank more real than I'd ever thought her to be.

more videos about Anne Frank here

Whenever I think of Anne Frank, I think of my grandmother who grew up in Denmark during the war. She lived above the delicatessen her father owned, and she's told me countless stories of curfews and rationing during Nazi Germany's invasion of Denmark. She also would tell the story of how she would wake up in the middle of the night and see strange people in her home. My grandmother, at the time, was about to be a teenager, and these strange people were Jews. In 1943, the people of Denmark took part in The Rescue of the Danish Jews, a collective effort to safely get Jews out of the country to Sweden. My great grandfather was one of those brave men who helped.

I wonder what Anne Frank would be like if she had lived in Denmark and had made it to safety. If she had passed through my grandmother's home, would she have woken my grandmother up with her footsteps and introduced herself only to find they shared the same name and similar features? Would they have played quietly in the dark while the adults plotted an escape to the sea? Would she have grown up to become the writer she wanted to be (but was already), the person who believed in people and the good in their hearts and taught others by example to do the same? I like to think so....

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment
before starting to improve the world."
- Anne Frank