Millions of people have read Anne Frank’s diary to understand the horrors of the Holocaust. But the fate of Frank and her family is also a disturbing reminder of what can happen when the U.S. turns its back on refugees.
On Friday, people around the world commemorated International Holocaust Memorial Day, including President Donald Trump, who then rolled out drastic plans aimed at restricting refugees.
A number of Jewish organizations have spoken out against Trump’s actions ― the parallels between the experience of Jewish refugees fleeing Europe during the Holocaust and Syrian refugees today are hard to miss.
While Frank, a German refugee who died in a Nazi death camp at age 16, is now widely idolized, Americans at the time may have viewed her with the same indifference they currently feel toward refugees from Syria and elsewhere.
Frank was a teen when she wrote her now-famous diary, an evocative chronicle of the years her family spent hiding from Nazis in Amsterdam. They were eventually discovered and sent to death camps. She, her sister and her mother all died.
Read the full article by Kate Abbey-Lambertz at The Huffington Post.