The Master Race

After years of hiding in rooms secreted behind the bookcase, the Frank family was betrayed to the Germans and sent to death camps.  Anne and her sister died of starvation and typhoid.  Of nine people who hid in the house on the canal, only Anne’s father survived to find and publish her diary. 

I came down from the hiding place and went into the adjoining building.  This museum tells the story, not just about the Franks, but of the entire German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II.  The Nazis were relentless in rounding up Jews and sending them to death camps.  The war was nearing its end when the Frank family and their companions were discovered.  If only Anne had lived a few months longer, she could have been saved to become as old as I am.

“If only” . . . .  one of the saddest phrases in the English language.

In the Anne Frank Museum I stood beside a big, middle-aged man.  Both of us had tears running down our faces.

Hitler told the Germans they were a super race.  The Jews were vermin who deserved to die.  The Nazis tried to exterminate them all, young men, old men, women, and children. 

On later trips to Europe I visited Holocaust memorials in Prague and Budapest.  In an old synagogue in Prague I read on wall after wall names with birth and death dates of thousands of individual Czech Jews killed by the Nazis. 

The Budapest memorial is a  weeping willow tree; made of shining metal, every leaf carrying the name of one of the 600,000 Hungarian Jews killed in Auschwitz.  This beautiful and touching memorial was a gift from the actor Tony Curtis, whose Jewish grandparents came from Hungary.

Over 6,000,000 died in the Holocaust.  Anne Frank has become a symbol for all of them.

Yet Iran’s Ahmadinejad dares to say it never happened!

Some people are unable to accept the truth.  They are frightened by people who are different in color, religion, or political persuasion.   When will we learn that no group is superior to another? 

I am prejudiced against prejudiced people.  Al called a sweet old lady a “Nigger”  I stood up and told him I found both his language and attitude offensive.  He said, “I have a right to my opinion.” .  

No, Al, this is not a matter of opinion.  It is a question of right and wrong. 

It is my opinion that Al what Southerners call “White Trash”.  I will not call him that.  To do so would be impolite.  I do not want to disparage another person, even if he is a misguided, ignorant louse like Al.  But sometimes I feel compelled to stand up and say, “You are wrong.”