While not wanting to shatter the “innocence” of youth, I took my kids to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam where we confronted evil head-on. The life of Anne Frank is not a pleasant topic for a six-year-old, but these sorts of conversations and visits are critical in forming worldviews and helping children to be mindful of the world in which they live.
Visit The Anne Frank House With Kids? I Say Yes.
The picture above is from my first visit to Amsterdam in 2006. It is hard to believe 17 years has passed. During that time my worldview and faith have continued to mature, though I am not sure I approach the tragic case of the Frank family or the depravity of the human race displayed by Nazi Germany any differently now than then.
But this was a very different visit: I had my six-year-old and two-year-old along. While two-year-old Claire Marie was too young to process anything, I was curious to see how receptive six-year-old Augustine would be to talking about murder, war, and fear, all encapsulated by a row house in Amsterdam.
The question of why does God allow evil seems appropriate here, but I will not take on that weighty topic now because I did not take it on with Augustine. I’m sure we will have that conversation one day. As we went through each room and listened to the audio narration during the tour, I was struck by how engaged Augustine was.
He understood what was going on.
When we came to the original bookcase that concealed the entrance to the hiding place and he actually got to see how it pivoted shut to conceal their location, he asked, “So they really had to hide upstairs and not make a sound?” It was that visual sight that crystallized what he had been told.
Walking through the secret annex and seeing where families actually lived in hiding simply because there were Jews…what a humbling moment.
Augustine asked the right questions. Why? How?
And we explained to him, as we had when we visited the Dachau Concentration Camp, a bit about human depravity, our tendency to act in fear not love, and how we fall short of our call to love one another and treat other the way we wish to be treated.
I do not have any pictures from our visit: I felt it just wasn’t appropriate to be snapping pictures in such a place. Photography is a critical part of my role as a blogger to tell a story, but it just did not feel right here.
Frank is venerated as an almost goddess-like figure at the museum, particularly toward the end of the tour when her influence around the world is showcased. I’m not certain that is helpful, but it understandable considering her prescient words that so nicely capture the hopes and dreams of the human race around the world.
I was most moved by the recorded words of her father (the only member of the family who survived) as well as the love showed by Hannah Goslar, Anne’s best friend, in throwing food over the fence while both were interned in a concentration camp.
Frank wrote in her diary:
“It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”
It’s beautiful sentiment…but I disagree. People are truly bad at heart…which her untimely murder helps to expose.
And yet my point was not simply to talk to Augustine about how wicked humans are, but to call him to action; the best way we can show love to others. Fear drives scapegoating. Fear drives government policies that target the most vulnerable. The answer to fear is not just courage, but love. We used this visit as an opportunity to remind Augustine to treat others with kindness and that every human life is precious. We reminded him that we have a great responsibility to care for the vulnerable and push back against hatred, even if we do not feel personally impacted.
CONCLUSION
Concentration camps and the Anne Frank House may not seem like great ways to spend a few hours with your young children, but I believe such visits and such frank conversation is necessary and proper.
Why don’t you just tell your kids that there is no god and humans are two steps away from being cruel monsters? I would recommend “Ordinary Men” by Christopher R. Browning for an exhaustive review of the subject.
You can also confront evil head-on this much closer to home. Just look up “Indian boarding schools” in the US. Or do certain ethnic cleansing efforts get more prominence than others? And if so, one has to ask why, and how do we continue or disrupt that legacy.
Or the persecution of Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians in India. Indeed, sometimes we don’t have to look far to find depravity.
You forgot to mention the Buddhists, Jains, parsis, Beni Menashe Jews and 500 million plus lower caste Hindus and tribes people.
Yes indeed.
Not sure why you are targeting Indians. I guess it is an easy target plus they’re not white.
To get a perspective on Indian treatment of Muslims you have to know the history of Islam. In the region stretching from Morocco on the Atlantic to Pakistan, the entire region has no tolerance for anything other than Islam and you complain only about India. British stopped Islam from spreading further into current day India.
Because the response I commented on (like your own) came from an Indian IP address.
And while I don’t defend savagery of any kind, I will note my (Indian) friend’s church in Goa was stormed by Hindu nationalists and he and his wife were forced to flee.
“Fear drives scapegoating. Fear drives government policies that target the most vulnerable. The answer to fear is not just courage, but love.”
Great message!
Did you always believe people are truly bad at heart, or did that change as you matured and if so, why?
I really enjoy your blog Matt. I have been to many places you have been and agree, I felt taking pictures was inappropriate at the Anne Frank house. Its has been some years since I visited and sometimes feel I should have taken a few pictures to remember, but at the same time, glad I didn’t.
I this its great you took them to this museum. History isn’t something we should be afraid of.
I do; however, find your belief that people are inherently bad at heart to be interesting. Think of “bad” people: Hitler, Pol Pot, Hussein, Amin and Putin are obvious, but many people died as a result of the decisions made by Bush and LBJ as well. All of these people, considered bad by many, thought they were acting in the best actions of their country or their religion. They believed their actions to be noble.
A lot of people who are supposed to be good, have caused immense pain and suffering as well: Sherman burned down Atlanta and likely killed a lot of slaves he was theoretically supposed to be freeing. A lot of innocent lives were lost in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Clinton had the power to mitigate the genocide of the Tutsi, but he didn’t act because we was still embarrassed about Somalia.
My point is that good/evil is often subjective and it’s hard to prove either. I personally have encountered more good people in my life than bad, and so I will ignorantly continue to think that people are inherently good. It makes me happier.
Take Augustine to the traveling Holocaust exhibit at the Ronald Reagan library in Simi Valley. The boxcar car out front really is penetrating. This boxcar grueling ride was the beginning of the end.
Interesting that you think people are intrinsically evil. I disagree although I’m not up to making an argument that people are inherently good either.
I would think you would be educating your children much better if you raised them in Germany / Europe rather than if you raised them in the USA. Go for it. ….Although I was raised in Canada with European parents and look where I ended up living; in Northern California.
I just visited Louisiana, USA, and went to a museum and explained about how Africans were brought to that region to work as slaves in the 1600s. The Acadians (French descendants) were also persecuted and killed. Humankind is with good and evil and will always be.
It sounds you agree with the Waldorf/Steiner education model of experiential learning.
Baby face!
99% of Americans know Hitler killed six millions Jews along with Ann Frank story. But I also am certain that 99% of Americans do not know how many millions fellow citizens that Mao and Stalin killed separately; in spite of the monstrous numbers. I gather you are a religious/ spiritual person but I am an agnostic person.
There is no unequivocal justification for a national leader to invade a sovereign nation without its leader’s request that ended in millions of death and billions of revenues wasted, in addition to countless collateral damages. Religions must never have any role/ position on public forum or national policies. Religions are the number one killer in human histories, maybe after natural disasters. Europe had 100 year religion war in its history.
Contrary to Catholic Church preaches that we were born evil that requires us to make frequent confession to cleanse our flaws, I believe that people become evil due to lust for power, fame and fortune. Not necessity or survival.
What religion did Mao or Stalin represent?
The reason why things like the Anne Frank house are necessary is because 99% of Americans DO NOT know that Hitler was responsible for the murder of 6M Jews. Some people have no knowledge of it. Some have heard, but deny it as reality. Some people are indifferent.
Diary of Ann Frank is banned in FL & TX because of MAGA
You mean the illustrated version?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/graphic-novel-based-anne-franks-diary-removed-florida-high-school-rcna79053
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-746102#
We should point out that the U.S. government placed nearly all Japanese people and some Germans in concentration camps during the war just like Germans placed nearly all communists in internment camps during the war. The difference is the U.S. was almost free of war at home and Germany’s supply lines were bombed by the U.S, British, and Soviets to the point that even millions of Germans starved near the end of the war. The U.S. could place the Japanese under better conditions but not the Germans with the communist arrestees as Germany was bombed since August 1939 by the British. This does not even talk about what the Soviets did with gulags to innocent anti communist civilians and christians or the systematic starvation of 15 million Ukrainians between 1932 and 1941 when Ukraine was liberated by the Germans.
Something we should note is that ball point pens didn’t exist when Anne Frank was a live. She died of typhus in an internment camp; the same illness that killed 1 million Germans between 1944-1948. There are credible allegations that Anne Frank didn’t write most of the diary as her father had control over publishing it. Hand writing analysis indicates the father was responsible for a significant portion of the published diary.
Millions of Germans and millions of people who endured Soviet enslavement don’t have the industrial complex pushing their stories so we don’t read the diaries about the brutality of communism that the Germans fought or the war crimes (fire bombings) of civilian cities with no military objective by the U.S.
I definitely did no go inside the house when I was in Amsterdam despite it being near my hotel but it looked like a comfortable home from the outside.
Touching article, some frightening commentors. All I can say is you are clearly raising your children to be better people than many of those who choose to comment on your blog.
The ball point pen controversy has long been debunked. The ballpoint was on 2 notes that police examiners had affixed to pages from Anne’s writings in the course of a legal matter to ascertain the legitimacy of her handwriting. Anne wrote in different colored pencils and in a marker type pen. She was editing her writings because a broadcast from the BBC, which the family listened to on a hidden wireless radio, had suggested that young people write down their experiences. Some of Anne’s writings have been lost, as well as her sister’s diary, the existence of which is alluded to by Anne. The release of more papers of Anne’s which had been entrusted to a family friend has further bolstered the authentication of Anne’s writing.
“looked like a comfortable home from the outside.”
CLEARLY you did not go into the house. And I mean C-L-E-A-R-L-Y… And with your ignorant comment you did not have to even mention you avoided history. I’m wondering if you were afraid of something or someone challenging your misguided beliefs. Are you aware of how many people lived in the space? Are you aware of how little of the building was her home?
You remind me of the kind of people who say things like, “It looked like a comfortable home from the outside, but what is the complaint here… After all, she got to go to a camp, maybe in the summer.”
Shame on you for your ignorance and lack of curiosity. I can only guess your politics, so I’ll leave it at that.
Wow. This response is surprising, twisted account. Very vivid imagination.
I applaud you taking your son to the museum and helping him to put things in his own context. My first visit to the Anne Frank House was when I was in the 3rd grade. I am thankful that my parents believed in exposing me to history, good and bad, from young. It also helped me gain my own framework to learn about other atrocities and, while many worse than the Holocaust, gave me a base understanding.
Some people are truly saints, some people are truly evil. Most of us are malleable (for better and worse)
I disapprove of the term “Nazi Germany”. Nazi Germans did not do this. Germans and Dutch did it.
We don’t say “Imperial Japanese” or “Communist North Koreans” or “Socialist Russians”.
It was a system in which people knowingly turned an eye (not a blind eye, but an eye) to what they knew was wrong.
I prefer the Christian Science dogma,all people are born Gods perfect creation,then through parenting,peers,current social standards,etc people form different personalities,embrace different values,mental illness sets in,.The Frank story is important,but I too doubt she penned most of the diary.Just like the king of Denmark and all Danes didn’t wear yellow stars to support jews during occupation,just like the concocted holocaust story by a jewish couple on Oprah who claim she tossed apples to him over the concentration camp fence,etc.
Matthew, thank you. Your children being exposed to history at such a young age is an AMAZING way to raise kids. Children are intelligent. For your six-year old to be able to experience this opportunity is an amazing testament to your parenting. As for anyone who condemns you, many of them are holocaust denialists, so don’t let them get ya down.
Great job of raising kids. There is nothing better than sunlight to expose the truth. You are a exemplary dad.
I like to drink and party in Amsterdam