Is the Anne Frank Diary genuine?



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56. Is the Anne Frank Diary genuine?

The IHR says (original):

No, the evidence compiled by Ditlieb Felderer of Sweden and Dr. Robert Faurisson of France establishes conclusively that the famous diary is a literary hoax.

The IHR says (revised):

No. Evidence compiled by Dr. Robert Faurisson of France establishes that the famous diary is a literary hoax.

Nizkor replies:

Ditlieb Felderer is a notorious neo-Nazi, who spent time in a Swedish prison for spreading hate propaganda. He is best-known for mailing snippets of hair to Jews in Europe, and asking them sarcastically if this can be proven to be hair from a gassed Jew. He has also written many disgusting tracts involving sex and Nazi murder. One which is too repulsive to repeat here describes (sarcastically) how cyanide gas influences a female sexual organ.

Part of the "evidence" which Felderer "compiled" is the following, in which he argues ironically that the diary cannot be totally forged because it seems to have been written by a Jew:

THE ANAL COMPLEX

We feel that another forceful reason why the Anne Frank Diary cannot be entirely dismissed as a fictitious story is its preoccupation with the anus and excrements, a trait typical of many Jews. Pornography and excretal fantasies have always fascinated them.... Jewish writings have been infused with stories about the reproductive and excremental functions. ...

... Although we cannot dismiss the argument that these excremental preoccupations are mere fancies on the part of the author or authors there are good reasons to believe the stories are genuine and are in part reflecting some of the foremost thoughts of the occupants. Even if they were invented they nevertheless splendidly depict the anal complex, of an ancient, cultural people.

Note that the IHR omits the reference to Felderer in the revised version. Again, as revisionism tries to move from the antisemitic fringes into the mainstream, they must jettison or at least disguise their ties to people like this.

Dr. Robert Faurisson is at least not as crude as Felderer. But he is not a historian, forensic expert, or handwriting expert. He was a professor of literature at the University of Lyons. The testimony of this "foremost Holocaust authority" regarding the authenticity of the writings of Anne Frank was rejected by the Frankfurt Oberlandesgericht (Higher Regional Court) in 1979.

In 1981, Faurisson was called before a French judge in order to substantiate his statement on the radio and in various publications that the gas chambers had never existed. He received a three-month suspended sentence and was ordered to pay fines and damages for defamation, incitement to discrimination, race hatred and racial violence. The sentence was confirmed on appeal.

Faurisson's strange sense of what constitutes evidence is described well by Michael Shermer in an open letter to revisionists.

In 1981, the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation submitted Anne Frank's handwritten diaries to the Dutch State Forensic Science Laboratory of the Ministry of Justice to determine their authenticity. The State Forensic Science Laboratory examined the materials used -- the ink, paper, glue, etc. -- and the handwriting and issued a report of some 270 pages:

The report of the State Forensic Science Laboratory has convincingly demonstrated that both versions of the diary of Anne Frank were written by her in the years 1942 to 1944. The allegations that the diary was the work of someone else (after the war or otherwise) are thus conclusively refuted.

Furthermore, that despite corrections and omissions...the Diary of Anne Frank [i.e., the published version of the diaries] does indeed contain "the essence" of Anne's writings, and that there are no grounds on which the term "forgery" can be applied to the work of the editors or publishers of the book.

The most common complaint against the diary is that it contains writing in a ballpoint pen, and that ballpoints were not popular until after Anne's death. This is a fraudulent but persistent myth. The only ballpoint ink in the diary were on slips of paper known to be inserted by someone other than Anne anyway. The writings of Anne herself are, needless to say, not in ballpoint.

See Frank, Anne, The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition, 1989, pp. 96, 166 (full citation available).

Recommended Reading:

The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition by Anne Frank, Otto H. Frank (Editor), Mirjam Pressler (Editor), s Massotty, Otto M. Frank (Paperback)

The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition by Anne Frank, Otto H. Frank (Editor), Mirjam Pressler (Editor), s Massotty, Otto M. Frank (Hardcover)

The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition by Anne Frank, Otto H. Frank (Editor), Mirjam Pressler (Editor), s Massotty, Otto M. Frank (Audio cassette)