Day #214

August 2, 2014

On Thursday, July 31, during our trip to DC, we visited the Holocaust Museum. Also considered a monument, this building houses memories of a most horrendous period of recent history. The atrocities humans can inflict on one another, and the reminder that such things still happen today, is overpowering.

My first introduction to the Holocaust was through reading The Diary of Anne Frank at about the age of several of the youth on the trip. So, as I rounded a corner in the museum, I wasn’t surprised to see her there in pictures. As I stood there reading about her, looking at the picture of the place where she hid, I was taken back to how her story affected me as a young teenager.

Little did I realize as I stood there that the next day would mark 70 years since the last entry in her diary. August 1, 1944, Anne wrote these words after talking about how conflicted she felt. She didn’t think she was the same on the inside as she appeared on the outside and it all seemed to confuse her and make her angry and sad. These were her last words:

“I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if...if only there were no other people in the world.”

Three days later, August 4, 1944, she, along with the seven others in hiding with her and two of their helpers, were arrested and taken away. Anne Frank died in probably late February or early March of 1945, just before the camp where she was taken to was liberated on April 12, 1945.

As I stood in Barnes and Noble (had to find the book again) reading these words, after realizing yesterday was the 70th anniversary of her last entry, tears came to my eyes; for her, for the tens of thousands of others, for those today, and for the potential that died/dies with them. How God must grieve over what we do to one another!

Blessings.