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Article: Plaster saint.(Anne Frank)
- Article from:
- The Women's Review of Books
- Article date:
- May 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Old City Publishing, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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When I was Anne Frank's age, I hated Anne Frank, and so did other disaffected American Jewish girls in the 1950s; but some of us used her too, to escape from lives we thought were awful, and for this callowness I still cringe. The most beautiful girl in my high school class escaped from our hated school by having a nervous breakdown when she failed, after many screen tests, to be cast as Anne in the movie; I mimicked her a few years later by reading excerpts from
the Diary at a Senior Citizens home, thereby escaping our high school graduation party. The old people wept over Anne's yearning innocence, and mine as well, while I felt faintly foolish and vaguely guilty ...