RS Trip (Anne Frank)
Recently, the Lower Fifth GCSE Religious Studies group visited the Crescent Theatre to see a performance of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’. Here, Fran Walker of L5A reviews the play.
The play was very moving, beginning with Otto Frank sitting reading Anne’s diary and wearing a scarf that we later learned Anne had made for him as a Hanukah present while the Frank family was in hiding. The play then shifted in time to before the Franks had to go into hiding, and we saw them as a normal and well respected German family. They had moved to Holland to escape Nazi persecution only to find Holland was to be occupied too. Under the Nazis, it wasn’t long until the Jews were so terrified that Anne’s Father decided that the family must go in to hiding. In secret, the family sneaked up to an attic above her father’s old company. It was very well acted and moving because it was a true story told from a real person’s point of view. We all found it poignant how the Franks, the Van Daans and Mr Dussel hid in the attic for two years, and were only discovered towards the end of the war and then transported on the last train taking Dutch Jews to the death camps. At the end of the play the actors returned to the stage, once again wearing their Star of David emblems, and explained how each of the Franks and their companions had died, be it from illness or being gassed. It was incredibly sad to be told that the men, women and children were all separated and taken to different places before they died. We all found it deeply moving that Peter, the15 year old son of the Van Daans had died just one day before the end of the war. Only Otto Frank survived and the final scene of the play featured him sitting reading Anne’s diary, the section where it ends abruptly, mid sentence, as the Franks were being forced out of their hideaway by the Nazis. When Otto realised this, he started to cry and the play ended.
This play was definitely worth seeing, and I think it made the Holocaust and Jewish suffering seem much more personal, as it was a reminder that the millions who died in the tragedy were real people with individual lives. As well as being an enjoyable trip, it was very educational in the widest sense as it engaged your feelings.
Fran Walker L5A
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