The Diary of Anne Frank, and the truth concerning this book is only one
appalling insight into the fabrication of a propaganda legend.
First published in 1952, The Diary of Anne Frank became an
immediatebest‑seller; since then it has been republished in
paper‑back, going through 40 impressions, and was made into a successful
Hollywood film.
In royalties alone, Otto Frank, the girl's father, has made a fortune
from the sale of the book, which purports to represent the real‑life tragedy
of his daughter. With its direct appeal to the emotions, the book and the
film have influencedliterally millions of people, certainly more throughout
the world than any other story of its kind.
And yet only seven years after its initial publication, a New York
Supreme Court case established that the book was a hoax. TheDiary of Anne
Frank has been sold to the public as the actual diary of ayoung Jewish girl
from Amsterdam, which she wrote at the age of 12 while her family and four
other Jews were hiding in the back room of a house duringthe German
occupation.
Eventually, they were arrested and detained in aconcentration camp, where
Anne Frank supposedly died when she was 14. When Otto Frank was liberated
from the camp at the end of the war, he returned to the Amsterdam house and
"found" his daughter's diary concealed in the rafters.
The truth about the Anne Frank Diary was first revealed in 1959 by the
Swedish journal Fria Ord. It established that the Jewish novelist Meyer
Levin had written the dialogue of the "diary" and was demanding payment for
his work in a court action against Otto Frank.
A condensation of the Swedish articles appeared in the American
EconomicCouncil Letter, April 15th, 1959, as follows: "History has many
examplesof myths that live a longer and richer life than truth, and may
become more effective than truth. "The Western World has for some years been
made aware of a Jewish girl through the medium of what purports to be her
personally written story, Anne Frank's Diary. Any informed literary
inspection of this book would have shown it to have been impossible as the
work of a teenager."
A noteworthy decision of the New York Supreme Court confirms this point of
view, in that the well known American Jewish writer, Meyer Levin, has been
awarded $50,000 to be paid him by the father of Anne Frank as an honorarium
for Levin's work on the Anne Frank Diary. "Mr. Frank, in Switzerland, has
promised to pay to Meyer Levin, not less t an $50,000 because he had used
the dialogue of Author Levin just as it was and "implanted" it in the diary
as being his daughter's intellectual work.
Furthermore, much of this "Diary" was written with a ball point pen, which
did not exist at the time. Barnum was right.
For publication,
Ed Toner
481B Jason Place
Brick NJ 08724
732‑840‑4203