Anne Frank

A detailed Summary of Anne Frank


In 1960, Bruno Bettelheim (a psychoanalyst and himself a survivor of a Nazi internment camp) wrote and published "The Ignored Lesson of Anne Frank," a critical essay. In this work, Bettelheim encourages a reinterpretation of the moral understanding, and a redirection of the resulting public sympathy, of the Anne Frank story. His main issue is "the universal and uncritical response to her diary and to the play and movie based on it, and what this reaction tells about our attempts to cope with the feelings her fate...arouses in us."(622) He identifies three typical psychological mechanisms that people in the post-war era employed for dealing with the revelation of the torture and mass murder that took place in the Nazi death camps. Most civilized people felt it was unbelievable, denying the evidence and attributing the atrocities to a small group of insane perverts. (621) A second mechanism was denial that the reports could be true by calling them 'exaggerated horror propaganda' - a myth perpetuated by the German government. (621) Finally, there were those that believed the reports. They accepted the truth, but quickly repressed their knowledge of it. (622)

Bettelheim develops these mechanisms of defensive denial and repres


I also think that upon reflection on Bruno Bettelheim's statements, Anne would agree about planning further and even getting a weapon to defend themselves. "Had they had a gun, Mr. Frank could have shot down at least one or two...the loss of an SS with every Jew arrested would have noticeably hindered the functioning of the police state."(623)

Bettelheim's real criticism is for "the universal admiration of their way of coping, or rather of not coping."(624) He is also strongly contemptuous of the "fictitious ending" incorporated in the play and movie, in which Anne Frank says, "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart."(625)

- "Possession by anxiety, fear and denial" (628)

- "Disregard for the dangers of reality" (625)

- "...her parents could not get themselves to believe in Auschwitz." (625)

sion in order to understand, if not justify, the widespread glorifying of the Anne Frank story. In the aftermath of the mayhem, the story of her private, gentle and sensitive world while in hiding was in accord with the general feeling of repression in people's minds.

- "Anxiety... incapacitated many" (627)



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Approximate Word count = 1114
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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