The media has distorted the image of Anne Frank in today'ssociety, the Indiana University Jewish Studies director, saidWednesday.
Alvin H. Rosenfeld spoke to about 200 students about the memoryof Anne Frank, a young girl known for her diary about the years shespent hiding from the Nazis during the Holocaust.
"I intend to show people how the image of Anne Frank has beentransmitted and transmuted, and in some ways used and misused forpolitical reasons," Rosenfeld said.
Rosenfeld started studying the Holocaust when he was a graduatestudent at Brown University.
"I think it chose me," Rosenfeld said, "There was a trial inIsrael of a major Nazi official named Adolf Eichmann. Accompanyingthe trial, there were numerous reports about Eichmann's crimes andthe crimes of the Nazis. And although I had known about theHolocaust in general ways, this brought it home in very detailedand graphic ways, and shocked me. "
Rosenfeld said that people see Anne Frank as a symbol of theHolocaust.
"Of all the many victims of the Holocaust, there is none thatrivals Anne Frank in popularity," he said.
He also addressed the distortion of Anne Frank's image,discussing how there is never going to be a finished version ofAnne Frank's diary because she died before she could finish it.
The end of the lecture was devoted to a question-answer sessionin which the audience addressed issues such as how high schoolteachers address the Holocaust in the classroom, Anne Frank'scheerful portrayal and people who deny the Holocaust occurred.
"The hope is that one begins with Anne Frank and then goes on,"Rosenfeld said. "In some ways, her diary is more of a foreshadowingof the Holocaust."
Senior Erica Fleischer, fine arts major, went to see Rosenfeldwith Hillel, Ball State's Jewish student organization.
"I like the ending, after he was done speaking, when peopleactually challenged him about how Anne Frank was taught in theschool systems and whether she was happy or not," Fleischer said."I found that to be an interesting concept."
When asked why students should remember the Holocaust, Rosenfeldsaid that most of his students say that remembering helps toprevent it from happening again, but Rosenfeld said that peopleshould remember the Holocaust because it happened.
"There actually was such a catastrophe in what we regarded to becivilized countries in the middle of the 20th century," Rosenfeldsaid. "And it was so horrendous and so much out of harmony of whatwe would expect of civilized behavior, as to cry out for study andremembrance. "
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