Guilt of survival begins to take toll

Chapter 25

By JOYCE APSEL

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 22, 2000

[Photos from Anne Frank: A History for Today] Hannah Goslar spoke with her friend Anne Frank through a barbed-wire fence at Bergen-Belsen soon after Anne arrived at the camp. “ ... She told me of the gas chamber,” Goslar said. “I didn’t know anything about it. There were rumors, but how can you believe such things?”

On Nov. 27, 1943, after being in hiding since July 1942, Anne Frank dreams about her friend Hannah Goslar and records these impressions in her diary:

"Dearest Kitty,

"Last night, just as I was falling asleep, Hanneli suddenly appeared before me. I saw her there, dressed in rags, her face thin and worn. She looked at me with such sadness and reproach in her enormous eyes that I could read the message in them: "Oh, Anne, why have you deserted me? Help me, help me, rescue me from this hell!'

"And I can't help her. I can only stand by and watch while other people suffer and die. All I can do is pray to God to bring her back to us. I saw Hanneli, and no one else, and I understood why. I misjudged her, wasn't mature enough to understand how difficult it was for her. She was devoted to her girlfriend, and it must have seemed as though I were trying to take her away. The poor thing, she must have felt awful!

"I know, because I recognize the feeling in myself! I had an occasional flash of understanding, but then got selfishly wrapped up again in my own pleasures and problems.

"It was mean of me to treat her that way, and now she was looking at me, oh so helplessly, with her pale face and beseeching eyes. If only I could help her! Dear God, I have everything I could wish for, while fate has her in its deadly clutches. She was as devout as I am, maybe even more so, and she too wanted to do what was right. But then why have I been chosen to live, while she's probably going to die? What's the difference between us? Why are we now so far apart?

"To be honest, I hadn't thought of her for months -- no, for at least a year. I hadn't forgotten her entirely, and yet it wasn't until I saw her before me that I thought of all her suffering.

Hannah Goslar survived the Holocaust and now lives in Israel.

Oh, Hanneli, I hope that if you live to the end of the war and return to us, I'll be able to take you in and make up for the wrong I've done you.

"But even if I were ever in a position to help, she wouldn't need it more than she does now. I wonder if she ever thinks of me, and what she's feeling?

"Merciful God, comfort her, so that at least she won't be alone. Oh, if only You could tell her I'm thinking of her with compassion and love, it might help her go on.

"I've got to stop dwelling on this. It won't get me anywhere. I keep seeing her enormous eyes, and they haunt me. Does Hanneli really and truly believe in God or has religion merely been foisted on her? I don't even know that. I never took the trouble to ask.

"Hanneli, Hanneli, if only I could take you away, if only I could share everything I have with you. It's too late. I can't help, or undo the wrong I've done. But I'll never forget her again and I'll always pray for her!

This year's Newspaper in Education series Introduction, previous chapters and Web Links

A month later Anne wrote in her diary of being "sad again last night when Hanneli and Grandma came to me once more."

"And Hanneli? Is she still alive? What's she doing? Dear God, watch over her and bring her back to us. Hanneli, you're a reminder of what my fate might have been. . . . "

(From The Diary of Anne Frank, the definitive edition, 1995)

Questions for discussion

• What do you think about Anne's dream?
• What are her mixed feelings about her life and that of her friend?
• What in her writing gives you a sense of how difficult it was for Anne to be in hiding from the Nazis for so long?

Next: "It wasn't the same Anne."

Dr. Joyce Apsel lectures nationally on Anne Frank, genocide and human rights. She teaches at New York University. Please address questions or comments about this series to: Floridian, Anne Frank and Human Rights, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or e-mail Floridian@sptimes.com.

On exhibit

"Anne Frank: A History for Today," an international touring exhibit at the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, 55 Fifth St. S. The exhibit, which traces Anne Frank's life and times through family photographs and diary passages as well as examines prejudice and violence today, is made available through the Anne Frank Center USA. Exhibit sponsors include the Eckerd Family Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Paul W. Martin Jr., the Sembler family and the state of Florida.

Hannah Pick Goslar to speak at museum

Hannah Pick Goslar, friend and classmate of Anne Frank, will speak at the Florida Holocaust Museum to a group of students from Manatee County at 10:30 a.m. today. With admission to the museum ($6 adults, $5 seniors and college students with ID, $2 for ages 18 and under), there is limited seating available for her presentation.

Goslar will also speak to teachers at an Educators' Evening tonight at the museum. Reservations for that event are full.

Additional reading

Night by Eli Weisel is Weisel's early masterpiece on life and death in Auschwitz; it recounts the struggle to maintain life and the relationship between father and son in the face of the brutality of Auschwitz. Isabella Leitner's memoir includes the way in which she and her sisters struggled together to survive the Holocaust. The relationship among the sisters and their dedication to one is a theme of this compelling memoir.

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