In July 1944, weeks before she was arrested, Anne Frank wrote one of the most hopeful sentences to emerge from history’s darkest chapter: “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
asserted
people → arrest → heart
For 80 years, the world has remembered her.
asserted
world → remember → her
We have read her diary, staged her story, built museums in her name, and taught generations of children two words: Never again.
asserted
We → read → words
But remembering is not the same as learning.
asserted
remembering → learn → ?
Nearly three years after Oct. 7, 2023, the question is not whether the world remembers Anne Frank.
asserted
world → remember → Frank
It is what the world remembers, and who is teaching it.
asserted
who → remember → it
My premise is simple: The world no longer learns its history from classrooms and museums alone, but from its loudest voices.
asserted
world → learn → voices
When the people with the biggest platforms blur the ideology that killed Anne Frank, they don’t just get history wrong.
asserted
history → blur → Frank
They give the oldest hatred permission to return.
asserted
They → give → permission
This summer at Lincoln Center, I watched Kara Young play Fontaine in The Whoopi Monologues.
asserted
Young → watch → Monologues
Fontaine is a black woman of the streets: an addict and a thief, profane and hardened, who also holds a Ph.D. in literature from Columbia.
asserted
who → hold → Columbia
On the run from New York, she lands in Amsterdam and finds herself in the Anne Frank House.
asserted
she → land → House
She sits down.
asserted
She → sit → ?
For a moment, something gets through the armor.
asserted
something → get → armor
Whatever else she has lost, she has not lost Anne.
asserted
she → lose → Anne
Whoopi Goldberg wrote that scene and performed it on Broadway in 1984.
asserted
Goldberg → write → 1984
She understood, better than most, how one girl could reach someone who had stopped letting anything in.
uncertain
who → understand → anything
Six million is a number the mind cannot hold.
asserted
mind → hold → ?
Anne gave it a face, a voice, and a handwriting.
asserted
Anne → give → face
Today, Goldberg has something far larger than a Broadway stage.
asserted
Goldberg → have → stage
As moderator of The View, she speaks to millions of Americans every weekday.
asserted
she → speak → Americans
In 2022, from that chair, she told her audience the Holocaust was “not about race” but about “man’s inhumanity to man.”
asserted
Holocaust → tell → man
The Nazis thought otherwise.
asserted
Nazis → think → ?
They defined Jews as a race and built their laws, deportations, and death camps on that definition.
asserted
They → define → definition
She apologized, said she stood corrected, and explained that as a black woman, she had understood race as something you could see.
uncertain
you → apologize → something
ABC suspended her for two weeks anyway.
asserted
ABC → suspend → weeks
Ten months later, she repeated the idea in an interview with the Sunday Times of London and apologized again.
asserted
she → repeat → London
I take her at her word.
asserted
I → take → word
That is what makes the moment instructive rather than merely embarrassing.
asserted
moment → make → ?
The woman who wrote one of the most moving encounters with Anne Frank ever put on an American stage had still lost hold of what killed her.
asserted
what → write → her
This is what happens when history becomes memory and memory becomes symbol.
asserted
memory → happen → ?
We remember the girl.
asserted
We → remember → girl
We forget the ideology.
asserted
We → forget → ideology
And when the people with the biggest platforms blur it, millions blur it with them.
asserted
millions → blur → them
What we learn depends on who is teaching.
asserted
who → learn → What
More and more, the teachers are hosts, celebrities, and influencers with audiences no classroom can match.
asserted
classroom → match → audiences
An ideology that is forgotten is free to return.
asserted
that → forget → ?
On Oct. 7, 2023, it did.
asserted
it → do → Oct.
Hamas terrorists crossed into Israel and murdered some 1,200 innocent people: families in their homes, young people at a music festival, children, grandparents, Holocaust survivors.
asserted
terrorists → cross → festival
They dragged more than 250 hostages into Gaza.
asserted
They → drag → Gaza
…and 52 more, not listed.
The Aporia
