Some Surprising Responses To My Facebook Post About The Cause Of Death Of Anne Frank

       Since I was a young child, I have known the poignant story of Anne Frank and her family. For decades, I assumed that she was taken to the gas chamber in a death camp. Yesterday I read a fascinating new report with great authority. When Anna was arrested, she first found herself in a very civilized almost low-security camp. For some reason, she found herself transferred to a death camp. Reports from survivors said that she appeared to give up hope and the will to resist. She took sick with typhus and died.

   I reported this on my Facebook timeline. I got some surprising responses. Every person commented that it was immaterial how Anne died. The Nazis created the conditions that led to her death. They killed her.

    To me, the worst way to die would be execution by some impersonal state authority (electric chair, firing squad, gas chamber, lethal injection, etc.) I have read reports on what it was like for Jewish inmates to die in the gas chamber. I will not describe it here. It is chilling. At least Anne had some choice in how her life ended. Sadly, and ironically, she died just before the camp was liberated. She just needed to hold on a little longer.

    In early 1945, my father accompanied General George S. Patton when he took a tour of a liberated Nazi death camp. General Patton vomited and cried. Dad had to be very drunk to talk to me about the horrors that he saw that day. I get very angry when I encounter a Holocaust denier.