A cura di @NedCuttle21(Ulm).

A cosa è dovuto il clamoroso successo del Diario di Anna Frank e perché invece i manoscritti dell’ebreo polacco Zalmen Gradowski, drammatica testimonianza di quel che succedeva nel campo di concentramento di Auschwitz, non hanno ottenuto una medesima risonanza internazionale? A questa domanda prova a rispondere un articolo pubblicato su Smithsonian.

People love dead Jews. Living Jews, not so much. This disturbing idea was suggested by an incident this past spring at the Anne Frank House, the blockbuster Amsterdam museum built out of Frank’s “Secret Annex,” or in Dutch, “Het Achterhuis [The House Behind],” a series of tiny hidden rooms where the teenage Jewish diarist lived with her family and four other persecuted Jews for over two years, before being captured by Nazis and deported to Auschwitz in 1944. Here’s how much people love dead Jews: Anne Frank’s diary, first published in Dutch in 1947 via her surviving father, Otto Frank, has been translated into 70 languages and has sold over 30 million copies worldwide, and the Anne Frank House now hosts well over a million visitors each year, with reserved tickets selling out months in advance. But when a young employee at the Anne Frank House in 2017 tried to wear his yarmulke to work, his employers told him to hide it under a baseball cap. The museum’s managing director told newspapers that a live Jew in a yarmulke might “interfere” with the museum’s “independent position.” The museum finally relented after deliberating for six months, which seems like a rather long time for the Anne Frank House to ponder whether it was a good idea to force a Jew into hiding.

Immagine di apertura via Wikimedia.