"French Anne Frank" Diary Enthralls France

Journal Tells Of Young Jewish Woman’s Life In Occupied Paris

(AP)  On some days her world was awash in light, on others dark shadows enveloped her and all of Paris.

The secret diary of a young Jewish woman recounting two years under the Nazi occupation portrays the slow shattering of her life, ending with her deportation on her 24th birthday and death in a concentration camp.

Helene Berr's account of life under occupation was destined for her fiance, Jean Morawiecki, who had left Paris to join the Resistance. She secreted the loose pages with the family cook. The diary was turned over to Morawiecki after her death in April 1945.

The diary - published for the first time this month - describes the small joys, the pervasive angst and the growing horror under the Nazis. But hate is a word that Berr, an advanced student of English at the Sorbonne, seemed not to know.

“There is something in the soul of Helene that is very luminous, despite the darkness ... Never hate but indignation,” her niece Mariette Job said in an interview. Job worked for years to obtain the diary and have it published.

The original diary is part of the permanent exhibition of the Memorial of the Shoah, France's Holocaust museum. It was put into book form, complete with photographs and footnotes, and published as “Helene Berr Journal.”

The French media are calling Berr “France's Anne Frank.” Both died of typhus a month apart at Germany's Bergen-Belsen camp. Still, Job and others point to the differences in age and circumstances between the two. The teenage Anne wrote while in hiding in Amsterdam, while Berr, whose diary begins when she was 21, was able to attend class and move about Paris, despite growing Nazi restrictions.

Still, Berr's diary is “an exceptional case,” said Karen Taieb, head of archives at the Holocaust museum. It is the first account of life under the occupation in France by a student, Taieb said.

Berr's diary is set to be published in English and at least a dozen other languages, said Marie Lannurien, head of foreign rights at Tallandier, the French publisher. Requests were coming in from the United States even before the book was released in France on Jan. 3, she said.

“What surprises me is the extreme maturity of her perceptions. She is not at all naive.” She “had no illusion about what happens to deportees,” Lannurien said.

Berr, who was born into a bourgeois Jewish family and led a life of privilege before the occupation, was a sensitive young woman with a literary bent and a talent for writing. She sprinkles her diaries with English words and makes numerous references to Shakespeare and Keats. Berr even gave her friends the names of heroes in her favorite books. Morawiecki, her fiance, was “Lancelot of the Lake.”

When the diary begins, Berr is an idealistic and exuberant student, and Paris is flooded in sunshine.

“From the rue Soufflot to Boulevard Saint-Germain, I am in enchanted territory,” she writes, referring to the Latin Quarter where she studied.

However, a dark reality is creeping inexorably into daily life. In an almost matter-of-fact way, on April 11, 1942, Berr writes of the property seizure notice imposed on her father, industrialist Raymond Berr - part of the Nazi process of “economic Aryanization.”

When her mother first announced the Nazi ordinance directing Jews to wear a yellow star, Berr had other things on her mind and brushed the news aside. But on June 8, 1942, when she wore the emblem for the first time, she understood the gravity. “I held my head high and looked people so straight in the eyes they turned away. But it's hard.”

Throughout the diary, Berr tries to find sense in the terrible duality that was her life: the beauty and purity of nature and the yellow star of “barbarity and evil.”

Friends' fathers died, her own father was held at Drancy, the transfer depot for concentration camps, outside Paris, then released.

Berr began caring for young Jewish children, some of whose parents had been deported, and, by November 1943, she writes: “I want to be cradled like a child.”

Gradually the Nazi noose tightened around Paris, and Berr and her family scattered at night, sleeping at acquaintances' homes.

She and her parents were arrested March 8, 1944, at their Paris home, on a night when they did not go into hiding. The three, as well as other family members, died in concentration camps.

The diary survived, first secreted away by the family cook, Andree Bardiau, who eventually gave it to an uncle of Berr's. The uncle turned it over to Berr's fiance, who gave it to Job in 1992. She gave it to the Memorial of the Shoah in 2002 so it would be preserved and shared.

With the diary, “We have a historic document written as a tragic novel,” said Antoine Sabbagh, a historian who pressed Job to publish it.

“The force of this document is that it shows the double aspect of occupied Paris, a life that could be beautiful, with promenades, while just streets away, there was persecution,” said Sabbagh. The “lucidity and maturity” are haunting, he said.

Accounts of life at the Drancy camp, which Sabbagh collected in “Lettres de Drancy” (Letters from Drancy), are “full of hope,” he said, whereas “Helene Berr knew, said in her journal, that there was a large dark passage awaiting her.”

Indeed, Berr's final entry, on Feb. 15, 1944, closes with, “Horror! Horror! Horror!"

---

Excerpts from “Helene Berr Journal,” as translated by The Associated Press:

June 8, 1942: On the first day she was forced to wear the yellow star to distinguish Jews: “My God, I didn't know this would be so hard. I was very brave all day. I held my head high and looked people so straight in the eyes they turned away. But it's hard ... This morning, I went out with Mother. Two kids in the street pointed at us saying 'Hey? You see? Jewish.’”

Oct. 10, 1943: On the reason she recounts her daily life: “I have a duty to accomplish by writing because people must know. Each hour of the day the painful experience is repeated, that of noticing that others don't know, that they don't even imagine the suffering of others and the evil that some inflict on others.”

Oct. 30, 1943: On encountering German soldiers in Paris: “Place de la Concorde, I passed so many Germans! with women, and despite my wish for impartiality, despite my ideal ... I was swept by a wave not of hate, because I don't know hate, but of revolt, nausea, disdain. These men, without knowing it, took the joie de vivre from all Europe ... And in this moment of disgust there was no consideration of my special case, I didn't think of persecutions.”

Nov. 1, 1943: “I am not afraid of death now because I think that when it is before me I'll no longer think. I will know how to remove from my mind the idea of loss, as I know so well how to forget what I want.”

Feb. 15, 1944: “Why ... does the German soldier whom I pass in the street not slap me, not insult me? ... They don't even see the illogical incomprehension there is in holding the Metro door for me and maybe tomorrow deporting me.”

The English-language edition of the French book will be translated by David Bellos of Princeton University for Britain's MacLehose Press.

[joesrc1]

SUCH A HORROR IN HISTORY NEEDS TO BE TOLD OVER AND OVER FOR ALL TO HEAR.THE HOLOCAUST DID HAPPEN WHETHER IRAN OR MEL GIBSON''S FAMILY LIKE TO AKNOWLEDGE IT OR NOT.

[gunownerdan]

When the Holocaust began, so did Hitler''s GUN BAN.
Coincidence?

The New York Times headline from November 11, 1938 on the start of the Holocaust:
"NAZIS SMASH, LOOT AND BURN JEWISH SHOPS AND TEMPLES..."
"Jews Are Beaten, Furniture and Goods Flung from Homes and Shops - 15,000 are jailed during the day......"

Here is Hitler''s racist gun control law from the same day:
"Jews are prohibited from acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons. Those now possessing weapons and ammunition are at once to turn them over to the local police authority.
Firearms and ammunition found in a Jew''s possession will be forfeited to the government without compensation. Whoever willfully or negligently violates the provisions...will be punished with imprisonment and a fine."
-- Regulations Against Jews'' Possession of Weapons, 11 November 1938, German Minister of the Interior
Frick
http://www.jpfo.org/filegen-n-z/NaziLawGerman.htm

[gunownerdan]

"At that time, a gun and a million dollars, the gun was worth more than a million dollars, because you could, at least, you could defend yourself with something."
- Frank Bleichman, Polish Jew who resisted the Nazis during WWII

Self Defense
A-HUMAN-RIGHT.com

[simonsez40]

A tragic loss of life for a sick and sadistic ideology - may her story be read again and again....may we never forget history - or we will repeat it again.

[azmka]

I had no idea that german soldiers were even the least bit cordial to anyone wearing the yellow star. That is such a strange paradox it''s hard to comprehend.

I was in Berlin last year and was also surprised to find find that the germans would catch Jews by looking at the souls of their shoes. If they were worn out(more so than normal usage) they were arrested. The Jews would walk the streets of Berlin during the day and mix in with the working crowd. The people who would hide them in their homes at night were too afraid of leaving the people hiding in their homes while they were away at work.

What a tradgedy!

[carterarce]

"A tragic loss of life for a sick and sadistic ideology - may her story be read again and again....may we never forget history - or we will repeat it again."

Uh, it''s being repeated right now. Just not to white people.

[gunownerdan]

cneron,
Please stop spreading misinformation.
Hitler did ban all weapons for Jews at the beginning of the Holocaust, I even posted the law from November 11, 1938. The Weimar Republic in 1928 passed gun registration, not a gun ban.

[mudrose-2009]

If this story is true about what the Great Emperor said, this is an amazing piece of news. My father flew in a B-24 in Europe during WW II dropping bombs on the Reich and he never once mentioned that the Allies has "super-smart" bombs that, when dropped could tell Jew from Nazi!!!! This must have been a big secret like the Norden bomb sight and the Enigma machine!!!

SIG HEIL, BUSH!!!!!
Posted by walt1944

You should be able to relate to Bush dumbo. Like you who apply contemporary concepts to past situations, Bush did likewise. But I could forgive him. He was swept by the anguish the moment caused. You on the otherhand, haven''t a clue what your father experienced or what this beautiful young girl went through.

How she caught the irony of the moment in a young soldiers display of manners to what may have been his attraction and the incongruity and stench of that yellow star.

[truthheals]

i cant wait for the Palestinian version

also ''Mohammeds List'' (to force-fed to every student in US)

[excoachken]

1/3 of all planes used to bomb Germany were destroyed and the men perished. I realize that the Cowardly Cowboy considers himself a "wartime survivor" because of all the Officer''s Clubs that he got drunk in during Vietnam, but his hindsight is myopic, since all bombing raids were carefully thought out as to the total impact they would have against the Nazi''s, therefore they freed the captives of Concentration camps as early as they could be freed. The brave leaders and heroes who flew these raids do not deserve W''s quack Monday morning quarterbacking. to those who had to hear his bs, it is simple chutzpah without a drop of courage!

[truthheals]

azm - you want tragedy?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/925695.html
Dying of occupation - a case of cancer and the Israeli right

a Gaza cancer patient named Nail al-Kurdi, 20, waiting since July for permission to cross into Israel for treatment, died of his illness. For five months, officials of the Shin Bet security service received request from Physicians for Human Rights, asking that they grant al-Kurdi a permit to be treated in Israel.

Request after request was denied. As the refusals mounted, his cancer spread. the physicians group appealed the Shin Bet refusals to the High Court. The court allowed prosecutors an extension Al-Kurdi did not survive the extension.

There is no evil quite like the evil of denying crucial medical treatment. Except one, perhaps.

Y.H., a 37-year-old Gazan in need of open-heart surgery. By contrast to al-Kurdi, the Shin Bet granted Y.H. an exit permit, so that he could travel to the West Bank for the operation. when he came to Erez Crossing to leave Gaza, Shin Bet agents called him aside for interrogation.

"If you help us we will help you," Y.H. quoted the agent as telling him, adding that the Shin Bet man asked him to provide information about his acquaintances.

when Y.H. replied that he had no such information, "the interrogator said ''If you don''t help up we won''t help you. Go and die in Gaza.'' He sent him back home, promising that he would never leave Gaza."

[excoachken]

to gunhuggerdan: The Nuremberg Laws of September 15, 1935 took away many human rights from Jews in Germany, including citizenship, civil service jobs, the right to fly a German flag, and even forbade them from having *** with non Jews, but it did not say anything about gun ownership. this is what started the concentration camp concept, accelerated by the Einstatzgruppen concept of putting them in the same locale (Warsaw Ghetto of September 1939)which is when weapons were confiscated, because of the potential for revolt. But, 3/4 of the Warsaw Ghetto Jews had already been sent to Concentration Camps (mostly Treblinka)by Himmler, before the April 19, 1943 uprising. Once again, the N.R.A. has tried to confuse the facts to fit their sick agenda for profit!

[timniles98]

We all have so much to learn. Once I thought I knew quite a lot about WWII.

I''ve read The Rise and Fall pf the Third Reich twice, once in 1968 and then again in the late 70s, but I didn''t really understand the scope of WWII until I watched and read Winds of War and the sequel, War and Remembrance. Like all works of fiction these two works used drama and characters simplified to sustain the attention of readers. but were filled with the reality of that period.

Of course, many documentaries and much historical fiction has been done on WWII, Walter Cronkite did an excellent video program on WWII in the 60s and Ken Burns did his amazing "The War" (released a few months ago on PBS.)

Because a portion of my childhood was spent in Los Alamos, NM, where the atomic bomb was developed - I was living within a few hundred yards from where scientists had created their own history - I have read more widely about that development (also, as an engineer, it holds technical power for me) and again, thought I knew quite a lot. But in the end, I had not known about the Allied firebombings of almost all major Japanese cities, reducing them to rubble and killing high percentages of civilians... what amazes me given that knowledge, is that the atomic bomb did stop the war. Why should the maniacs running Japan have bothered to notice that if they couldn''t see the other?

We have a lot to learn and remember.

[cfin5]

As a young man I was fortunate to be able to visit Anne Franks house and Corrie ten Booms family clock shop in Holland. I will never forget it,.....ever. Neither will I forget the pictures that my uncle took of some of the concentration camps that he helped liberate. It happened all right. The most vicious animal in the world walks on two legs, but their hearts are indeed on four.

walt1944, you and some of the media have taken Bush''s words out of context -- what he said was that the Allies should have bombed the railroad tracks leading up to the camps as well as some of the installations that support them.

[gunownerdan]

Front Page Headline of "The New York Times" on November 11, 1938 at the start of the Holocaust:
"NAZIS SMASH, LOOT AND BURN JEWISH SHOPS AND TEMPLES...."

Nazi Weapons Law passed on November 11, 1938:
"Jews are prohibited from acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons.
Those now possessing weapons and ammunition are at once to turn them over to the local police authority.
Firearms and ammunition found in a Jew''s possession will be forfeited to the government without compensation.
Whoever willfully or negligently violates the provisions...will be punished with imprisonment and a fine.
Berlin, 11 November 1938
Minister of the Interior
Frick"
http://www.jpfo.org/filegen-n-z/NaziLawEnglish.htm


Is this just a strange coincidence?

[rudy654-2009]

Posted by gunownerdan at 10:39 PM

Quit using the Jewish people to promote your love gun agenda. The Jewish people of Europe suffered because people didn''t care what happened to them. Even when the Jews of Warsaw fought back, yes with guns, they finally were overwhelmed by the Nazis. But the Nazis weren''t the only ones to blame. The Polish people as a whole didn''t care what happened to them either and even contributed. Likewise, the Native Americans also carried guns to protect themselves, even with marked success, but ultimately war after war took its toll on a people who just want to live their lives. The problem is that not enough people cared about the rights of others. Learn this lesson and quit trying to use the dead to promote your agenda. It is sick and disgusting.

[ubrew12]

My mom, 12, was imprisoned by the Japanese at a prison camp in the Philippines, with her father. Conditions were so harsh, they BOTH caught tuberculosis. She, miraculously, lived. He... died. I never knew my grandfather, but I hear he was a great guy!!

Do the neocons among us ever stop to consider the horrendous personal costs they incur among those they affect???

There is only one enemy. It''s the neocon. A fellow who, out of deep deference to his tribe, finds no trouble cr*pping on otherwise decent human beings outside his tribe. It goes on forever. It needs to STOP!!!!

[juwboy]

truthheals:

ALL Palestinians who are denied entry to Israel claim they were asked to provide information about their friends and family, so yours and all other similar accounts can be taken with a grain of salt.

Gullible people like you don''t understand that lying to non-Moslem infidels is not only permitted under the Islamic doctrine of Al-Taqqiyeh, it''s ENCOURAGED.
Lying to infidels isn''t a sin, it''s a virtue.

I suggest that you change your pseudonym from truthheals to gutlessperjuryheals.

[cs4466]

Hey gunownerdan - stop showing your massive ignorance and spamming your right wing gun agenda here. I''m sure there''s some bunnies or deer or other defenseless animals around for you to kill. Shoo.

[gunownerdan]

Self defense is the most basic of human rights.
My post is not an "agenda", it is a history lesson that has been largely forgotten.
Basically all mass murders and genocide by governments in the last 100 years involve gun bans to make sure the victims will be defenseless.

Front Page Headline of "The New York Times" on November 11, 1938 at the start of the Holocaust:
"NAZIS SMASH, LOOT AND BURN JEWISH SHOPS AND TEMPLES...."

Nazi Weapons Law passed on November 11, 1938:
"Jews are prohibited from acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons.
Those now possessing weapons and ammunition are at once to turn them over to the local police authority.
Firearms and ammunition found in a Jew''''s possession will be forfeited to the government without compensation.
Whoever willfully or negligently violates the provisions...will be punished with imprisonment and a fine.
Berlin, 11 November 1938
Minister of the Interior
Frick"
http://www.jpfo.org/filegen-n-z/NaziLawEnglish.htm

[jaykay3141]

How much we lose to hatred! What books would she and Anne Frank have written? What films would Leslie Howard have made? What music would Bohuslav Martinu or Glenn Miller have composed? What families would have been raised, what accomplishments would have been made by the tens of millions of less famous, indeed, just ordinary people whose lives were ended?

That was 7 decades ago and yet it goes on: Cambodia, Sudan, Somalia, and Kosovo have all happened on OUR watch. Instead of stopping the craziness, all we''ve done is add more. Iraq down, Iran to go.

[prinzowhales]

While the French are being enthralled...the new Hampshire elections have been stolen once again... the Regime has passed new laws to try and disarm veterans...the former President of Italy has said that it was an open secret in the intelligence community that 9-11 was a joint operation of the CIA and Mossad...joining a host of former high-ranking intelligence officials, cabinet members, scientists and, military men who have come out publicly and denounced the Inside Job, though you would not know it from CBS...Covering Brittany''s Skivvies.

[cfin5]

Posted by Prinzowhales at 04:42 PM : Jan 12, 2008--------------It is unbelievable in the way that our public servants (COUGH!) have lifted their lawmaking heel against our veterans. They''re treating their born and now "blood bought" rights far worse than illegal aliens and I dare say real terrorist suspects themselves. SHAME ON THEM!

[ubrew12]

jaykay3141 said: "it goes on: Cambodia, Sudan, Somalia, and Kosovo have all happened on OUR watch. Instead of stopping the craziness, all we''ve done is add more. Iraq down, Iran to go."

Exactly. If OBL wants to be a neocon puss-gut, hey, that''s HIS problem. NO reason for half of the U.S. population to JOIN him!!!