Tipperary priest Fr Vincent Stapleton writes to diarist Anne Frank

Fr Vincent Stapleton

MOST ILLUSTRIOUS ANNE FRANK
Beloved Anne,

I am writing to you on the occasion of what should have been your 93rd birthday on June 12 last. As we all know, your life was tragically cut short at the age of 16.

St. Therese of Lisieux once said that she would spend her heaven doing good on earth. It must be moving for you Anne, to look down from heaven and see the many people who are deeply moved and inspired by your world-famous diary, Kitty. I am one of them.

We all learned about you in school. You are one of approximately six million Jews who were victims of the Holocaust. Talking about the war in Ukraine recently with a friend of mine, he wisely observed to me that when we try to comprehend such a large number of victims like that, things tend to get generalised and we lose the immediate sense of connection to what is happening.

The danger is that people begin to tire of hearing about the war and it becomes just one more news item of interest among others. He said that going to the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam is an antidote to this vagueness … or even reading your diary. It presents us with the intimate details of one person’s story that are so real and vivid. It is impossible not to be drawn in and made to feel part of the story.

We have some frame of reference for what you went through Anne. We have just emerged from two years of lockdown ourselves. In our case, it was an invisible virus. In your case, it was the very visible evil of the Nazi occupation. In the confined space of the Achterhuis (the famous secret Annexe – behind a bookcase where the Frank family hid) you were afraid to even breath during the day and you could never go outside – just like sardines in a can.

I have to admit that when I read the first entries of the diary, I was less than enthusiastic. The simple musings of a thirteen-year-old girl didn’t do a lot for me. But as the days and weeks passed, you became a prime example of something that has often been remarked upon – that great suffering and trials can purify a soul. Diamonds are formed under pressure but they are not formed overnight.

Thank you for sharing your intimate thoughts, your fears, the kindling of your first love and its ups and downs, and the wonderful reflections of your soul. You looked forward so much to making an impact in the world with all that you learned in your internment. But you were betrayed and it was not to be.

As our elder Jewish sister in faith, I ask you to pray for us and particularly for our young people. Since the pandemic has ended, I often think how quickly we have rushed back into the rat-race of consumer life at an even higher tempo than before , as if to make up for lost time.

Pray that we don’t forget the lessons learned over the past two years – that the deeper values are the ones which get us through – faith, hope and love. Our relationship with God and with our nearest and dearest can be the most challenging but also the most rewarding areas of life.

I’ll leave the last word today to you, Anne – “It's really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death.

“ I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”

Fr Vincent Stapleton is a curate in Thurles parish and is currently Rector of St Joseph and St Brigid’s Church, Bóthar na Naomh, Thurles.