“There is no variety in our thought than there is for ourselves. They go round and round like a roundabout - from Jew to food and from food to politics. By the way, talking of Jews I saw two Jews through the curtain yesterday. I could hardly believe my eyes; it was horrible feeling, just as if I’d betrayed them and now watching them in their misery.” - The Diary of Anne Frank, p. 55 Sunday, 13 December, 1942
When I read this I felt a bit of discomfort. I really felt like I was in their shoes, and how they were feeling at that moment and to see that Anne Frank had to see that was sad, even though I know that I can’t really say I know what it’s like because I wasn’t there. When Anne stated that she felt like she has betrayed them, at first I wondered how why she felt she had betrayed them? But then I thought deeper into her thoughts... she felt like she should help them with anything they needed help with. In this diary entry, most Jewish children needed help with the stuff they were going through, such as needing a place to stay, having things to eat, and hygiene.
I feel like the themes presented in this quote are bystander, dehumanization, and victimization. Anne Frank was a victim of her own thoughts because she was worried that she didn’t help the Jewish people she saw that needed help. I feel like things like this are a discomfort to Anne, and also to the Jews she saw. To think that someone out there is going through the same things you are going through and you really don’t find a place in your heart to help them, but the problem is in not knowing how.
I agree with your thoughts - I can't say for sure how I'd feel but I can understand something of how hard it must have been to feel so helpless all the time. The fact that she felt she betrayed the people she saw outside maybe means that she felt guilty that someone was helping her to have food and a home, but that she couldn't help others. Too bad she never got to know that she has ended up helping thousands and thousands of people through the reading of her diary, and countless more will be helped in the future. Who knows how many people have decided to get involved with helping in their own neighborhoods or elsewhere because of her words?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Anne did help a lot of us today, she had a lot of us understand what was going on back during the Holocaust,through a person during the Holocaust, we're seeing it from her eyes. Her pain and struggle she and other Jews went through.
DeleteI agree with you. However, I think that that might not be exacly why she feels so sad. Her sadness seems like it has two sides to it. The part where she is sad because she can't help them and the part where she feels guilty that she is hidden away safe while they are not. She might be feeling like I feel when I am working on a project with my friends and one of them doesn't do the work they were supposed to do and get a bad grade. I feel sad that my friend got a bad grade and sort of guilty because I feel like I could have done something to make him or her remember to get it done. I think that Anne might be feeling like soldiers who come back from war after losing a friend. She might be feeling something that is very much like survivor's guilt where the soldiers feel guilty because they survived while their friends or comrades didn't.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the bystander part because she has stated that she felt like she has betrayed her own people. How Anne Frank was seeing all the Jews suffer while she was inside a home hiding.
ReplyDeleteTomasz Wojtasik I agree with you, and your point your.There is two sides to sadness, but she does starts to get a feeling of guiltiness, because she didn't really help them.
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