Since the publication of her iconic diary, Anne Frank has become one of the most well-known Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Anne fortuitously spotted her treasured diary in a shop window in June 1942, and her father Otto subsequently gave it to her as a present for her thirteenth birthday. Only a month later, Anne’s older sister Margot received a dreaded call-up notice from the Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung (Central Office for Jewish Emigration) ordering her to report for relocation to a work camp. With the help of his most trusted employees, Anne’s father (who co-owned a company that sold wholesale herbs, pickling salts and mixed spices), arranged for his family to go into hiding in the small annex above his company’s premises.

The Frank family lived in these tight quarters for two years (with another family to boot), never once venturing outside until their arrest in August 1944. Deported first to and then to Bergen Belsen with her mother and older sister, Anne was the last of the three Frank women to die, succumbing to typhus in March 1945. Anne’s father was the family’s sole survivor.

Anne wrote movingly about the mundane aspects of her inner life (such as the trials and tribulations of adolescence), as well as the psychological toll she suffered as a result of her confinement and the Nazi’s invasion of Holland. Her diary has become one of the world’s most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films. It has even been the inspiration for a 1994 concept album, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, by the indie-rock group Neutral Milk Hotel, which some critics have hailed as one of the few truly great albums to come from a Generation X’er.

NMH’s lead singer, Jeff Magnum, who was so overwhelmed by sadness and grief after reading her diary that he was inspired to write an album about it. He has described some of the songs off the album as based on a haunting recurring dream he had of a Jewish family during World War II. Although it met with scant response from the general public when it was released, the recording has continued to gain momentum in indie music circles, selling well over 200,000 copies, according to Merge Records.[7] However, the record (along with the year of constant touring that succeeded it) took its toll on Mangum. The band abruptly went on hiatus, turning down all requests for shows. Fans (such as myself) continue to wait with baited breath for a new album or comeback tour.

Come back to us Jeff!

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