Anne Frank is a girl after a film and lit fan’s own heart: a vivacious teen who loved movie stars and words. “I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn,” she noted in her famous diary.
Had she survived the Holocaust, Annelies Marie “Anne” Frank would have been eighty-five on June 12. Her honest but eloquent diary – found in the Amsterdam house where she, her family, and other Jews hid from the Nazis during World War II – launched her to posthumous fame worldwide and made her a literary icon. Time magazine in 1999 named her one of “the most important people of the century” because of her courage, pragmatism, and thoughtful self-analysis.
At Word and Film today, I pay tribute to Anne and highlight other World War II-inspired stories where youths take center stage, among them 2013’s “Lore” and 1987’s “Hope and Glory.”