Banned Books – March 25th, 2025
Most Americans agree that the banning of books is a direct infringement on our First Amendment rights, according to the Constitution of the United States of America; however, one of the other factors that the banning of books affects is history…the accurate account of the events in America and the world.
Given the current climate in our country and around the world, we need only connect the dots to see the potential of repeating some of the most devastating, dangerous, destructive, and potentially deadly events in the history of the world.
This week, I chose a publication that is of historical significance in literature for many reasons, but first of all, for its truthfulness. We’re examining the three versions of the “The Diary of Anne Frank.” The original version was written by Frank (herself) and published from the pages of her diary after her death. The second version of the Diary of Anne Frank was written by Otto Frank, Anne’s father. The third version is a co-mingling of Frank’s original version and Otto’s version.
The “Diary of Anne Frank” is a detailed account of Frank, a young Jewish teenager, and her family’s two years in hiding during Germany’s occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. Published in 1947, Frank’s book became a go-to publication for war literature.
From the day she received her plaid diary, on her thirteenth birthday, she began to document her horrific journey through a hellish two years before being discovered and shipped off to the Westerbork transit camp and then deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and later, Bergen-Belsen.
Frank’s writing is a poignant mix of fact and emotion, and she wrote honestly about jealousy, her changing body, parental intrusion, her hopes of becoming a writer…a journalist.
An important, personal, and honest account of the Holocaust, Frank’s diary was banned in some libraries and schools because of its graphic content, discussions of sexuality, and the harsh realities of the Holocaust.
Why Frank’s story resonates today is crucial for Americans to pay attention to what is going on in our country and the world. Don’t just pay attention; make certain you understand the freedoms we enjoyed previous to those currently in power. If you read “The Diary of Anne Frank,” you’ll glean that what happened then is happening now in America. It’s not just the banning of books that is unconstitutional; it’s the systematic dismantling of American institutions, the denial of civil rights and liberties, and the deliberate dissolution of protects designed to keep us free and safe that should send a huge wake-up call to every one of us here in this country.
History is usually written by the survivors, who are rarely if ever, encouraged to tell the truth, but one truth has been proven, “If you do not know your history, you’re doomed to repeat it.” It seems in today’s climate, we’re heading towards repeating it. Whether or not we’re doomed is yet to be determined.
The chaos in the current political climate has desiccated much of the American population, as well as the populations of our allies and other nations, designed to do so with the intent of causing so much chaos that it leads to total civil unrest, which will then lead to a declaration of martial law, at which point elections can be suspended, and whoever is in power can remain in power, despite challenges.
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