Commentary: A new look at Anne Frank

The camera loved her.

A series of school photos, taken from 1935 to 1942 when she grew from 6 to 13 years old, shows a lively face framed with fly-away hair, a charming overbite and dark, ink-pot eyes.

In one of her diary entries, she joked about going to "Holywood" and becoming a screen star. She plastered a wall in the Secret Annex with pictures of her movie heroines, but Anne Frank became a different sort of idol.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., is presently hosting an exhibit that, although it includes marvelous vintage photographs, focuses on Anne Frank, the writer. So much has been written about Anne, it is wonderful to see gathered artifacts that remind us of her art, practiced through the simple act of recording her thoughts in a diary.

On the day I visited there recently, crowds shuffled through the dim rooms in respectful near-silence. It seemed no one wished to despoil the hushed atmosphere.

Anne Frank has come to symbolize the undaunted spirit of Holocaust survival -- even though she died at age 15, a few weeks before the Allies liberated the Bergen-Belsen camp where she was sent with her sister Margot. Anne wrote perhaps her most famous passage -- "I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart." -- one month before troops raided her family's hiding place in Amsterdam and captured everyone in the household.

No matter how many times I read the "Diary" or hear her story, I always hope for a different ending, for the Americans to get there sooner, for this girl on the cusp of womanhood to live and have her chance at a long, full life.

I went to the exhibit hoping to see the diary itself. A facsimile rests under glass together with reproduced pages. It is more than satisfying. I studied each scrap.

The red-plaid diary was a gift for her 13th birthday. She instantly turned to its blank pages for support and comfort, naming it "Kitty" and jotting down that she wanted the book to be a "true friend." It was the first thing she packed when her family was forced to move from their home. "Memories mean more to me than dresses," she wrote.

From the first page, the diary evoked from her the confiding tone. She did not know she was writing for a future audience of millions of readers. So intimate is Anne's style that each reader feels kinship and a personal connection. I have heard this sentiment repeated countless times.

Although she fretted on paper, wondering whether she possessed "real talent," there is no doubt she was, truly, a writer. She pounced on words as if they were flowers waiting to be gathered, scratching on everything, captioning the photos in her album, commenting on what she was thinking about or doing in the pictures.

The photos break your heart in their depiction of everyday, joyous family life. Two sisters at the beach, eating dripping ice cream cones. School friends playing with hoops and scooters. Aunties and grannies relaxing in summer gardens.

The early pages of her diary preserve her childish and uneven handwriting. She pasted in pictures of herself and scrawled humorous subheads and titles, in essence saying, "Look at me!" Later, when she begins to copy over her work -- possibly for future publication -- her hand is sure, her pages are carefully numbered and her observations mature into literate, deeper thoughts. Some of the original pages presented here appear with a riveting inkblot or two, a few crossed-out phrases and interesting smudges.

As I wandered through the exhibit, I watched a girl, 8 years old or so and wearing lipstick and nail polish, press on a glass case, unconsciously moving closer to the very touch of this writer. The guard told her, gently, to stand back. I understand her yearning. Many of us crave the tactile sense of original manuscripts. The pages represent the very soul of this unusual/ordinary adolescent; the diary was the lifeline she clung to through unimaginable horror. "I can shake off everything if I write," Anne tells us. "My sorrows disappear; my courage is reborn."

Anne scribbled away during her two years in the Secret Annex - her refuge from Nazi terror -- composing fairy tales, short stories, essays and even the beginnings of a novel. She called these works, several of which are displayed in the museum, her "pen-children." Adopting the habit of many famous writers, she collected favorite quotations in a volume she titled "Book of Nice Sentences."

She wrestled with herself on the page, crying out, "I'm split in two." Her "better and finer side" battled with her "light hearted and chatterbox side." She was always afraid to show "all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart." She tried out different techniques and styles, documenting the quarrels of her fellow exiles, fashioning small dramas from arguments over dishes.

By any standard, not even considering her circumstances, her output was prodigious. Writing became her necessity.

In a videotaped interview included in the exhibit, Miep Gies, the faithful employee of Anne's father who supplied the family with food, books and news from the outside, describes a moment when she interrupted Anne at her writing desk. The girl looked up, with an "expression of pent-up fury," reports Gies. When she wrote, she let it pour out of her -- curiosity, frustration, anger, sorrow and exaltation. At her young age, she discovered what it was to be a working writer.

It's a good thing wise heads protect her precious, immortal pages, else they would be shredded by the sheer force of love by her devoted admirers. Lucky for the world, we can reproduce her words and endlessly share their insights.

Here is my favorite passage: "I don't have much in the way of money or worldly possessions, I'm not beautiful, intelligent or clever, but I'm happy, and I intend to stay that way! I was born happy, I love people, I have a trusting nature, and I'd like everyone else to be happy too."

A nice surprise among the treasures in the exhibit is a 14-second film, the only known footage of Anne. It was taken in 1941 when she was 12 years old. She is standing on a balcony, watching a wedding scene down in the street. She looks over and sees the camera pointed at her. She looks up to the sky, then into the apartment behind her, calling to someone inside. She looks back at the camera, poses a bit, then loses interest and directs her attention once again to the action in the street.

I watched this tiny but vivid film -- a wisp -- a dozen times. The image captures Anne as she wished herself, and everyone, to be -- happy. I don't know why, but I'm absurdly pleased that she turns away from the camera and goes back to studying whatever is going on below her stone balcony. Her fascination with looking out at life and observing its action and drama, coupled with her powers of self-reflection and the courage to look deeply within her own heart, would have served her well had she been granted the time to mature as a writer.

The museum has extended the exhibit through December. It is not enough time for all the new generations who yet need to meet Anne and her humble diary. There never will be enough time.