Exploring Anne Frank and Difficult Life Stories (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory)

This volume, grounded in the Diary of a Young Girl and its continued appeal to readers of all ages, sees both promise in the relevance of Anne Frank’s story in the twenty‑first century, and potential for new ways of teaching her story and those of other genocides and human right violations. Engaging Anne Frank with these other cases clarifies the distinct nature of the Holocaust, and we build on the fact that the diary touches areas of deep interest, especially to young people, and that it has been read as a monument to resisting hate, which is itself a prerequisite for educating citizens of more diverse and inclusive societies. The diverse contributions and viewpoints in this volume illustrate how rich the ongoing engagement with Anne Frank and her legacy remain.

Chapter 10 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Kirsten Kumpf Baele is the University of Iowa’s Anne Frank Initiative director and Associate Professor of Instruction in German. Her teaching and scholarship address youth agency and expression, trees in the arts, and contested spaces. She brought the 13th Sapling from Anne Frank’s Chestnut Tree to the university.

Waltraud Maierhofer is a Professor of German and Global Health Studies at the University of Iowa. Her recent research and teaching address representations of reproductive and disability rights in German and global fiction and film. She’s received Alexander von Humboldt awards and translated The Child Witches of Lucerne and Buchau (2022) by Swiss novelist Eveline Hasler.

Doyle Stevick is the Executive Director at the Anne Frank Center at the University of South Carolina. He was a Fulbright scholar to Estonia in 2003 and 2013–14 and has co‑edited two books on citizenship education and three books about Holocaust education around the world.