Anne Frank and Me: Two Camps, Two Worlds
“Dear Mom and Dad, I am still having a GREAt time.”
Like a refrain that echoes throughout a song or poem, these words begin almost all of the letters I wrote to my parents in 1961 and 1962 from Camp Walt Whitman in Pike, New Hampshire. The missives were stashed away in a box I unearthed from the bowls of my mother’s basement after she died. Now, three years later, I’m reading through the them – dozens (poor parents!). I was 11 and 12 and, judging from the words I scratched out in pencil, one might think I was the happiest kid in the world. In any case, I was close.
I am the second-best riffler in my bunk . . . I just passed the third-level swimming and rowing test . . . I hiked “BLACK MONTAIN . . . I hit a MEAN saftball today . . . I got a 95 on the first aid test, the HIGHEST in the group . . . I acted in a play, The lady or the “Tigger” and had one of the best parts . . . My ‘musels’ are getting bigger from gymnastics . . . I learned TACKING . . . I’m SO popular . . . I performed a skit with my dummy JERRY MAHONEY at the talent show to BIG BIG BIGGER (maybe 10 minutes, ha ha) ‘applawse’ . . . I learned ‘Raillrod’ Bill on the banjo . . . THANKS for bringing up my cello. I’m in orchestra and learned the hardest part of ALL the instruments . . . I did 22 chin-ups and am the champ of the WHOLE camp!
Many letters were signed “Kenny the Magnificant.”
Confident and happy-go-lucky, I was soaring into adulthood.
After dinner, I tuned into Netflix. The Dutch movie “My Friend Anne Frank” popped up on the screen (Anne was trending!), and I thought I’d give it a try. The film brings Anne and her best friend, Hannah Goslar, to vivid life, as if these beautiful teenagers had suddenly walked out of Anne’s diary. The pair were inseparable, living the life of all happy-go-lucky young teenagers. They sang, met boys, sneaked into the movies (verboten to Jews), dressed up, dreamt about their futures, giggled about French kissing, and, well, acted like most healthy, fun-loving teenagers. They could have been my neighbors and gone to my junior high school on Long Island.
Then, as we all know, the unthinkable happens. The Nazis come and bang on their doors. They barge in. They have five minutes to pack their bags. To go where? They are not told, but they know. Anne and Hannah’s family are hauled off to Bergen Belsen concentration camp. The suffering is indescribable: the overcrowding, the open shit holes, the hunger, the brutality, the poor sanitary conditions causing outbreaks of typhus, the murders . . . a living hell. As Myer Levin once wrote, “. . . these people have gone through a sieve of death . . .” I can’t hold back my tears.
Anne and me. Bergen Belsen concentration camp and Camp Walt Whitman. Two camps, two worlds.
There would be no Camp Walt Whitman for Anne, who was just a few years older than ‘Ken the Magnificant’ when the Nazis came and stole her life away. How come I was so lucky when she – and so many like her – were robbed of their happiness and lives? I’ve often said to my kids when they felt beaten down, who said life was fair? But knowing life is unfair doesn’t take away the pain.
I suspect it’s going to be a few days before I’m ready to pick up the next large manilla envelope, stuffed with letters from Camp Greylock.