MovieChat Forums > The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) Discussion > I have an interesting story about Anne

I have an interesting story about Anne

posted 19 years ago by merfwriter
29 replies | jump to latest

I took a Holocaust class in college. We had two different survivors who came t speak to our class. One of the survivors was a man who was born in Poland. He was forsed to live in, I think it was, the Lodtz ghetto. One day the Germans came and took him away from his mother in their tiny run down apartment and he was deported to a labor camp. From the labor camp, he was transfored to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. While in the camp, he was assigned to dig up large pits and then take the bodies and throw them into the pits. He was only sixteen at the time. Imagen it, sixteen and throwing bodies into pits. Anyways, by the end of the war the Alies were getting closer and closer to the camp, and the Germans wanted the prisoners to work harder and harder to get rid of the bodies. As many of you know Anne died at the end of the war in 1945. What some of you might not know is that she died days before British alies liberated Bergen-Belsen.
Believe it or not this gentalman had actually came across the body of Anne Frank while disposing the bodies. He was one of the last people to see Anne Frank with his own eyes, dead.

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] merfwriter 19 years ago

Hay I don't know but i was kind of in a fog while he was telling his whole story until he mentioned Anne Frank, my ears perked up at the sound of her name so it has to mean something.

[–] luis86 19 years ago

I don't have any doubt on your story, but it is true: it is hard to believe that this man knew who Anne Frank was if she wasn't even known at that time. At least that he had met her before her death and, when he was digging her body, actually found himself digging his friend's body.

[–] noveltylibrary 16 years ago

what's harder to believe is that the OP went to college.

[–] ruminerpianogrl 15 years ago

What's even harder to believe is that you probably think that was a witty thing to say. What a stupid comment. The OP was just telling a story, he didn't display any stupidity nor intelligence. If, say, he posted using horrible grammar in chatspeak, then your comment might have seemed a bit funnier and possibly witty. As it is, it just seems like you're not very bright, which you probably aren't.

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[–] gina_tunino 15 years ago

Thank you. Someone had to say it.

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] merfwriter 18 years ago

True. But they'er dead. How can you reunite if your dead.

[–] shikuuu73 18 years ago

You should've exposed them for the filthy liars they are.

[–] Siriry 18 years ago

Everyone already knows that the Nazi were filthy liars.

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[–] aubreysbaby1 18 years ago

in 8th grade a whole semester we studied about Anne Frank, we read the play, watched this movie, and we also had to do reports on a specific part of the Holocaust. Like, i got The SS. In the play at the end it tells us what became of Anne and everyone in the story. But the part about him seeing Anne Frank could go both ways, i mean did he explain how he knew it was her? Because everyone knows about the story of Anne Frank, he could have been saying it just to get more attention to his story- make it, cooler i guess?

[–] IndieSpirit92 18 years ago

How could he recognize her though? At that point her signature long, black hair was gone, and she must have lost a lot of weight. I would think she'd be un-recognizable.

[–] taylorje 18 years ago

He couldn't have known Anne, this was pure fiction. She died a terrible death of typhus; her head had been shaved, she had scabies and lice, causing severe skin infection, and she was probably skin and bones when she died. I bet even her own family wouldn't have known her at the end. Survivors who actually knew Anne in Bergen-Belsen said that as far as they knew, her body was taken outside and dumped with the others, then buried in a mass grave. That's how it was done and there's no reason to think that anything different happened with her corpse.

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] lesnmike 16 years ago

This is what I am curios about: Why would he even know who Anne Frank was? Her book had not been discovered, movies had not been made, she was not famous at that time. Why would he even know of Anne Frank's existence?

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] fayette420 16 years ago

I think the biggest question would be when was he at the college. Beacause, while he may not have known who it was when he was disposing of the body, that is not to say that after he was freed, and the book came out, he THEN realized who it had been. Maybe for some reason, her face stuck out in his memory, and when he saw her picture years later, he knew she was one of the ones he saw. Just my 2 cents

[–] AbbiiMushroom 16 years ago

I think that it is one of those stories that can't really happen. And I do agree, she would have been unrecognisable - we all change in appearance during puberty and there is no photograph of her after they went into hiding. Combined with the disease and terrible conditions she would have been in - I dont think anyone would have been recognisable: unless the man knew her prior to her death and in a similar condition.

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[–] maddiemoiselle 16 years ago

I think the biggest question would be when was he at the college. Beacause, while he may not have known who it was when he was disposing of the body, that is not to say that after he was freed, and the book came out, he THEN realized who it had been. Maybe for some reason, her face stuck out in his memory, and when he saw her picture years later, he knew she was one of the ones he saw. Just my 2 cents

That's what I am led to believe.

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[–] astockton_uk 8 years ago

I assume that inmates of the camps told each other their names. Though cut off from the outside world, they overheard their guards talking and knew the war was coming to an end.

Once it did end, survivors would be looking for each other. It helped to meet someone who could tell survivors that their loved ones were dead.

[–] g_dekok 16 years ago

Peter was marched off from the prison camp where he was; having said goodbye to Otto who was in the camp hospital. Otto and Peter were in a different camp than the Frank daughters. As far as I know, Peter was not heard from ever again.

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[–] marvelass 15 years ago

^^^
That Pia Zadora story is an urban legend. It never happened. Here's a link to the Snopes article:

http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/zadora.asp

"Whatever one might think of Zadora's acting abilities, though, this tale doesn't ring true -- about her or anyone else... Pia Zadora herself never had a starring role in a stage version of THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK -- on Broadway, Off-Broadway, or anywhere else. Add to all that the fact that at no point in the play do Nazi soldiers actually appear on stage (thus eliminating any chance for the the legend's punchline to be delivered live), and you have one amusing, generic, but plainly fictitious "bad actress" story."

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] marvelass 15 years ago

No such thing happened -- to Pia Zadora or in any production of THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK. Your Jewish solicitor was just repeating an urban legend that's been around for decades. It was an honest mistake on his part.

Oh, and Snopes is a reputable source for validating and debunking urban myths.

[–] 15 years ago

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