The Red Diary
A cycle of narrative poems inspired by the diary of Anne Frank
by Margaret Gunning
Part one of four
To the memory of Anne Frank
I remember my
affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and
the gall.
I well remember
them,
and my soul is
downcast within me.
Yet this I call to
mind
and therefore I
have hope:
Because of the
Lord’s great love we are
not consumed,
for his
compassions never fail.
They are new every
morning;
great is your
faithfulness.
- Lamentations 3: 19 - 23
INTRODUCTION
Very early on a summer morning, I had a
long and strange dream about Anne Frank.
This came after what seemed like an
eternity of dryness and lack of inspiration in my work, when the ground was so
parched the flakes of earth curled under the sun. In the dream, I was incarcerated in a Nazi
prison camp. I was very earnestly trying
to put together a book of my own, a sort of diary, only it was being compiled
according to a rigid set of specifications, many of which made no sense. I was (as it were) only following orders.
In this dream, I had a certain awareness
that I would soon be executed, though I was not sure what I had done to deserve
it. This caused me more resignation than
fear. Then I was looking through the
original of Anne Frank’s diary, only the pages were made of a very sheer,
fragile, almost iridescent glass, and were full of photographs and ghostly,
glowing images. There were no
words. I said to someone beside me (perhaps
a fellow prisoner), “This life means something, no matter how short. It stands for something, and it will be
remembered. It is a lesson.”
Then I was actually standing in the
presence of Anne Frank, small and dark and intense, exactly as she appeared in
her famous photographs. Without speaking
the words aloud, I asked her, “You know how this ends, don’t you?” She knew, and I knew that she knew, even
though she did not say a word.
There was an extraordinary feeling of
touching her essence, as if there were no real border between us, even though
in this dream I was not myself, but a soldier, a man. The rest of the symbolism and puzzles of this
dream remain a mystery, some riddle my psyche would rather I not resolve.
At about the same time, something
unexpected happened: I began to see a lot of newspaper and magazine articles
about Anne Frank, as the world marked the 60th anniversary of the
discovery of her hiding place in Amsterdam. She would have been 75
years old at the time I was writing, probably a mother and a grandmother, and
it is impossible for me to believe that her remarkable writing would have
stopped in her youth. This sense of
anniversary and of what might have been made the writing experience especially
poignant for me.
The strange vision I experienced on that
summer morning was so vivid it affected me almost like an electric shock,
forcing me to take a look at the extremes of human valour, humble
self-revelation, sacrifice, art. . . all the things I admire and crave, yet
fear that I lack. My immediate reaction
was feeling that I was not worthy to write about this, that I had no claim on
Anne Frank or anything she stood for; I am not a Jew, I don’t remember the war,
and at the time of the dream, I had not read Anne’s diary for some thirty-five
years, so my memories were hazy at best.
But something compelling was set in motion
by this dream, and I did begin to write, even in the face of my doubt and
fear. The dream also compelled me to
re-read the diary, this time in the “definitive edition” of 1995, which
includes a wealth of material not present in the carefully edited version I had
read as a girl. It seems that the world
is now ready to encounter a more human Anne, sometimes angry and critical
(especially towards her mother), and always true to her name in her frankness
about sexuality, spirituality and all the abiding mysteries of life.
Daily I would read a section of the diary,
no more than twenty pages at a time, as more than that would have been
overwhelming. Daily I struggled to
respond in poetry to this astonishing document, so well written that it would
be the envy of any mature professional writer.
At the same time, I was reading biographical material from other sources
to fill in the background. I also
discovered the superb Oscar-winning documentary film Anne Frank Remembered, which I highly recommend to anyone
interested in this compelling subject.
Through writing this long poem, I began to
re-experience traumatic events in my own early life, and I had a decision to
make as to whether to include them in the work. In the final analysis, I felt I had little
choice, as the material kept presenting itself, more and more insistently. It was a creative risk I had to take, in
spite of my continued struggle with an unresolveable dilemma: how dare I claim
to have suffered in the face of the horrendous abyss of the Holocaust?
Though I did not completely lay this
internal battle to rest, I did continue with my poetic response to Anne’s diary
until it was completed to the best of my ability. Though much of the original
dream remains a mystery to me, I believe it was a gift of sorts, as well as a
creative spur. I was being asked, even invited, to take a deeper look at
something powerful, something ultimate, perhaps even transformative. In the face of my own doubt and fear, I had
to follow this bright red thread wherever it would lead me.
DREAM OF
ANNE FRANK
Dream
when I opened your
book of pages
a glass butterfly
with manifold wings
I knew I had no
pages
except according
to directions
that made no
sense: I was only following orders!
but you were
there, a slip of a girl
a slice of pure
meaning
pure illumination
and sacrifice
and I wondered how
I dared to look – knew
I was not worthy
to look,
but had to look –
could not avert my eyes,
as you could not
avert your
steady brown gaze,
those eyes that saw
to the core of so
many things.
I was some sort of
broken soldier
imprisoned,
except I was on
the wrong side,
always in the
wrong. . . and commanded
to make a book
that had no meaning,
according to
illogic’s rules.
And I obeyed.
I always followed
orders,
so that my book
had no meaning
and no sense.
Your book shone
like
gold teeth, like
eyeglasses
in a heap,
frail hoarded
visions,
all the images
of the millions
who can no longer
see.
How could you know
at fourteen
what we lose when
we age, the clarity
that saw through
surface grumpiness,
bad smells, bad
temper
to shining selves
in a war for integrity.
Shut away, you
blossomed.
Impossible. Impossible that you could
bring forth such
clarity, such an account:
you were only
telling what you saw,
but you said
everything, held nothing back.
Such hard
truth. Such audacity.
Destroyed: yes, snuffed out
by other humans;
will my mind ever
comprehend the
reeling contradiction?
Is this why I
despise myself?
What sort of Nazi
am I, that tramples the
butterfly,
that pulls out
gold teeth by the roots?
Forgiveness
Is forgiveness
impossible
in being on the
wrong side?
Can I shut up the
yammering Hitler in my
head?
My dreams are
grimy newsreels
of pompous
oppression
and silently
shrieking crowds
that fall into
lockstep,
the fresh-faced,
wholesome youth
who gaze up
smiling
at the face of
their saviour.
Anne floats above
all. Freed.
Not held to this
earth,
this place of
pain.
But we needed
her. We needed her to stay.
Her vacancy is
like the cavity of a
pulled tooth.
We will miss her
forever.
My heart slowly
turns
inside-out
and I am
eviscerated,
my body an empty
cavity
through which a
raw wind blows.
I am not a Jew
But I never knew
her.
She was never
mine.
What claim do I
have on her?
I am not a Jew.
On the wrong
side. The other.
Not the one who
saved.
Not the one who
redeemed.
I would not hide a
Jew.
I would not risk
that shadow in my house.
My heart skulked,
scurried like rats.
My neighbor left a
loaf of bread on the doorstep
daily until the
famine was over.
I kept the bread
for myself: shooting Jewish dogs
in the head.
My soul writhes.
There was no
other.
I was the Jew.
But I could not see.
Anne
You appeared to me
quite early in the
morning,
and for all the
world
it was as if I was
looking at you
straight and clear
as you were in
life,
small and dark and
neat,
graceful as a
young tree,
with a charming
smile and a dimple,
lively eyes
and a brain like
chain-lightning.
Such small frail
shoulders to support
so many millions,
the fragments of
hope,
just enough,
just enough to
carry on.
For these words,
these words,
I will live
another day,
I will not end
this,
twist though my
heart might
in anguish,
all meaning flown
away.
One small pure
flame of integrity
will sustain my
life, will carry me through
the long
and impossible
night.
Forced bloom
You said so much
about life in
captivity.
You said so much
about proximity
forced by
circumstance
(cruel, unusual)
and forces of
history
meted out in
matchsticks, daily bread
and bickering over
the least of things.
Bread, and
soldiers
and marching steps
and radio
broadcasts that crackled with static
and import
you must have
known where you were
in history
even as young as
you were,
that someone had
to do it,
to bear witness to
the dailiness, the strain,
the tiny flashes
of
inextinguishable joy.
What gave you such
steadiness? I quail before you.
My head spins in
astonishment.
Life had not
taught you that you couldn’t;
and so you could,
and did.
Barely in your
teens, your gift was full-blown;
you knew you were
doing the work.
And what is more,
you had the valour
and the
persistence
to keep getting up
in the morning
to face all those
people
who got on your
nerves
who barely
comprehended you
(even if they
loved you),
who could not tell
you anything,
offer any hope,
any sense of a way,
a way back to life
in full.
The overpowering
tectonic forces of history
molded you,
matured you
before your time,
forced like a rare
orchid
into rich bloom
in a stifling
corner.
A certain
fearlessness
sustained you,
though the
grownups must have been
paralyzed with
anxiety,
barely able to
sleep or work or make love
in the shadow of
unspeakable fear.
Was it your youth,
your spirit,
was your courage
so much greater,
or did your daily
words, your task,
put the heart in
you
while the others
sank
THE DIARY
It is a holy
document.
One would expect a
grand binding
of leather and
gold,
or parchment paper
with gilt edges,
but instead it’s a
jolly little thing,
gaily covered in
red-and-green plaid
with a lock and
key for privacy.
An ordinary girl’s
diary, a birthday
present, a
potential, a book of pages,
and for you, with
such a gift,
a companion.
Kitty, you called
it, and it looks like a Kitty
in a bright stylish
coat,
fun and
flirtatious,
tossing her dark
hair, light and careless of heart.
And the early
entries
are all about
bicycle rides,
and boys,
and testing out
your power
as a woman,
though even in
this time of freedom,
you felt the
menace closing in.
Jews must wear a
yellow star,
must badge
themselves
with this symbol
so strangely beautiful,
two triangles, a
double trine of fire,
a requirement, a
signal, a delineation,
a branding of
otherness,
of look, look,
I am a Jew, I cannot hide
what I am,
I must wear it all
the time on my breast
right next to my
heart
so the enemy can
watch me,
can keep his eyes
on me,
and use my own
symbol of power
and covenant
against me.
Jews must wear a
yellow star,
Jews cannot go out
at night,
Jews cannot visit
with Christians,
Jews must not go
to the market
in the day time. .
.
and on and on, the
restrictions,
the confinements,
closing in like a
hand.
Inside this bright
plaid coat
fear lurks,
death lurks
yet walks with
light step, defiant.
Like klezmer
music,
a light spirit is
ultimate resistance,
a refusal to be
bowed.
And so you sat and
wrote: Dear Kitty.
And this girlish,
kittenish companion
caught all your
thoughts, received your days.
She sat and
listened.
She was fascinated
with you.
You focused down,
you became absorbed,
and you wrote what
you saw.
