by Mary Curtis

Created on: June 11, 2009   Last Updated: July 28, 2011

On Friday, June 12, 2009, we will reflect on what could have been Anne Frank's 80th birthday.

As we remember Anne's birthday this year, our country and many parts of Europe are seeing hate and intolerance rise again, the same forces that resulted in the Holocaust of World War II. One TV commentator said recently that "hate is becoming fashionable again." Did he realize what he was saying?

Anne Frank, as most of us will recall from reading her story or seeing a movie or play about her life, was a young victim of the Holocaust; she was only 15 when she died in a Nazi concentration camp. We know about her because of her diary which she meticulously kept and which was discovered by family friends and published years later by her father who was the family's only survivor.

What is so important about Anne Frank's story?

The Holocaust comes alive in Anne's writing; it becomes personalized to everyone, we live it along with her. Anne's experience is not just a piece of history to us; we have insight into what happened to her and her family. We get to know her, her mother, father, sister, and friends; and then we are able to take this deep personal relationship and multiply that experience by 6 million.

The gift of Anne's writing has the ability to touch every human heart. Because Anne's writing, which lives on eternally after her, has that ability to reach into the heart in areas that matter the most to all of us - our love of family, our goals, and worries for what the future will bring - we are given a special gift. By reflecting on what Anne tells us in her writing, we can learn how to live better, stronger lives because we can learn to boldly stare down and overcome the intolerance which enshrouded Europe back then and which still threatens us today.

Popularizing hatred and overlooking intolerance ushered in the Nazis; Anne's story teaches us that hate and intolerance, racial or religious, must never again become in vogue or fashionable.

I received a copy of "Diary of Young Girl" by Anne Frank for my birthday from a family member when I turned 13. Like many young people back then, I wasn't that excited to be getting a book for a birthday present when I would have much preferred The Beatles' new album so I put it away in a drawer and eventually the book became lost. It wasn't until a few years later, when I was in high school, that I began to appreciate the significance of that book and how important Anne's story is for all time. Today, I wish I had not lost that

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