The power of a parent's love
Learning an important Father's Day lesson at the home of Anne Frank
Anne Frank House, front view
Portrait of Anne Frank
It was not cards and ties that my husband got today for Fathers' Day
today. Instead, I am penning this article minutes after exiting the
Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.
The preserved Secret Annex was saved from demolition by Otto Frank,
Anne and Margot Frank's father. What a tribute to fatherhood — poignant, moving and tremendously inspiring.
In 1960, the Secret Annex opened as a museum and personal testimony of
a father's love and devotion to his daughters, as well as a a very
personal statement to the world about the horrors of prejudice.
The Frank family hid on the third floor of a jam factory that Otto
Frank handed over to a non-Jewish friend to run with the promise to hide
his family on the third floor.
The Franks lived in cramped confines, shortly with another family, as
well, for two years from July 6, 1942 until they were exposed and
arrested on August 4, 1944.
The family was separated and sent to several different
concentration camps. Anne Frank wound up in Bergen-Belsen. One month
before liberation, Anne succumbed to her illness and died.
Many have postulated that had she known that her whole family had
not been murdered and that her father had survived, she might have
hung on. Sadly, she did not have that information.
After the war, Otto Frank, knowing that his wife, Edith, was dead,
searched and searched for his daughters, Anne and Margot. He genuinely
believed that they were alive until he received word that his precious
daughters had not made it.
His associate, Miep, a co-conspirator in hiding the family, gave Mr. Frank Anne's diary. Although, he had promised Anne that he would
not read it, despite the fact that she tucked it into his briefcase
every night, he finally read it a couple of years after the war ended
and he learned of his daughters' demise.
His impressions of the diary are enlightening and heart-warming. His
thoughts do not involve the war, but concern his insights into his
daughter's feelings. He did not know that his daughter
and wife quarreled. He had not realized how serious she actually was.
He concluded that you never really know what your children are thinking.
What a wonderful tidbit of knowledge from a father seeking all that he
could know about his children!
Reflective and hugging onto my husband tightly, we crossed
the Amsterdam canal, our children laughing and skipping to our lunch cafe. I
have never felt more blessed to have such a wonderful father for my
children.
Many speak of a mother's unsurpassed love. As a mother, I can attest to
that statement. Nonetheless, I am truly humbled by many fathers' love
for their children, my own husband's and, of course, those like Otto
Frank's.
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