The National Geographic channel always presents excellent historical productions through its Genius series. It has explored the lives of Albert Einstein, Aretha Franklin, Martin Luther King and Pablo Picasso. So when I read National Geographic was presenting an account of the Anne Frank story, A SMALL LIGHT, I was eager to watch, found it fascinating and beautifully presented. (The production is also streaming on the Disney Channel.)
It has been years since I read ANNE FRANK, the DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL. But whenever I hear her name, I cannot forget her story. Anne’s father, Otto Frank, served in World War One on the German side, then later married Edith Hollander, wealthy in her own right. They had two daughters, Margot and Anne. Their lives were comfortable until Hitler became the leader of Germany and the Nazi party. Hitler’s goal: to rule all of Europe, and if successful, the World. He based that future success on ridding his country and eventually the world of the Jewish people. Adolf Hitler was determined to create a Master Race that would stem from German bloodlines. Thus, any German child born with a mental or physical defect must also be killed, “eliminated” being the word Hitler used to prop up persecution, torture, mass murder.
But when the Nazis did begin to win, pressing hard, moving across Europe, persecuting and killing Jewish people, Otto Frank moved his family to Aachen, Holland. It was April, 1941. He had worked in a bank, until the monetary collapse in the 1930s. In Aachen, Frank started his own company called Opekta, which produced products used in making jams and jellies. Anne and Margot enrolled in Dutch Schools, and as Anne writes in her Diary, they could only appear in public if they wore a large yellow star sewn to their clothing.
When Jewish friends of the Franks began to disappear from the streets of Aachen, Otto relied on his company to keep his family safe. With the help Miep Gies and others in the office, the Franks moved to the top floor of the building where Frank ran his business. Many of you will be familiar with the precautions the family had to take in order to survive during their two years of hiding: they could never leave the building; a fake bookcase was created to block the stairwell leading to the attic or annex where they hid. They could not flush the one toilet they had during the day, fearing the plumbing might alert anyone working downstairs. And it was always Miep who made sure the Franks had what they needed, who kept the family and the others hiding there connected to the outside world.
In A SMALL LIGHT, the Anne Frank story is once again beautifully told, but through the eyes, the worries, the sacrifices of Miep Gies. And it stays in that lane. The focus is not on Anne. The focus is on Miep—she being A Small Light in a very dark time. Those of you familiar with the basics of the story know how it ends. Someone betrays the Franks. They are hauled off to the German camps, and only Otto survives. BUT…he finds Anne’s diary. Eventually publishes it.
This presentation, A SMALL LIGHT, can be compared to Anne’s diary, which millions have read, because the presentation enlightens us once again to the horrors of Nazism and the deaths and cruelty the Nazis carried out during their time in power…which sometimes does not seem that long ago.
As we often say: THE REST IS HISTORY. But if someone mentions they are keeping a diary, I often think of Anne. She found the space and time to write how she was feeling, suffering, questioning. What she wrote was a gift to all of us.
A SMALL LIGHT does not focus on Anne…she is hiding in the ANEX, and we see her maybe five times…arguing with her sister, sitting at the dining table where they all gathered, jumping around on a night when they could act like themselves…and finally…walking down the ANEX stairs to be led away….to her death. Who we do see is the actress Bel Powley, portraying Miep Gies. And Liev Schreiber, portraying Otto Frank. Do not miss this presentation.
PS FREEDOM WRITERS
Erin Gruwell took a job student teaching at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California in 1994. Over the next four years, she found she changed not only her own life, but also those of the 150 students that passed through her classroom. A recently completed documentary digs into her story, which was the basis for the 2007 film, Freedom Writers, starring Hilary Swank as Gruwell.
The documentary explores Gruwell’s experience working in a school that remained markedly segregated, even decades after the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education declared “separate but equal” unconstitutional. When Gruwell discovered students passing around a racist caricature of one of their classmates, she explained how this kind of imagery was comparable to the propaganda spread by the Nazis. When only one of the students had heard of the Holocaust, Gruwell decided to shift the focus of the class entirely.
Her unconventional teaching style moved away from the standard curriculum found in most high school English classes – Shakespeare, the classics – and helped students to understand how narrative storytelling could be more personal. She had her students keep journals, which allowed them to explore their own personal experiences, while also becoming empathetic to the experiences of others. Gruwell assigned readings from “The Diary of Anne Frank” and “Zlata’s Diary.” She invited speakers to class, including Miep Gies!!
5 Responses
I strongly recommend this series. Very telling.
I look forward to checking this out. Thanks
Dear Friends,
Thanks for your patience during my Blog redo, Beth
There’s nothing more important than a wonderful teacher. She sounds amazing.
Ah, yes. So I recommend watching both A SMALL LIGHT and FREEDOM WRITERS!!