In his introduction to his daughter’s diary, which she wrote in hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam during the World War II, Frank explicitly stated that the complete book was the work of his daughter. Anne had died earlier in the year in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany.
Advertisement
“To suggest that her father was her co-author, even if it is only for copyright purposes, is not wise”. Apparently there was an original diary that Anne Frank started in July 1942. Then in March 1944, Anne Frank began creating a second version by rearranging and rewriting her journal for potential publication after the war.
If the authorship change goes unchallenged, the Anne Frank Fonds, which Otto Frank established, will retain control over all printings of the book until 2050, the NY Times reported. One lawyer says it implies the foundation has been lying all these years about Anne writing the diary on her own and that it “should think very carefully about the consequences”.
“Critics of the diary’s success, and its representation, claim that the same themes of universal humanity that have touched readers around the world have also removed Anne from her family, religious and historical contexts – rendering her legacy devoid of its true meaning”, according to Newsweek’s piece. The Amsterdam foundation is now working on a new digital edition of the diary with the Huygens Institute of Dutch History.
Because of his role in editing, merging, and trimming entries from Anne’s diary and notebooks and reshaping them into a single work, the foundation claims that Otto was a co-author of the third version of Anne’s diary – the one that was originally published.
Such quibbling over Frank’s legacy has left a bitter taste in many mouthes. “Copyrights in Europe generally end 70 years after an author’s death”.
Advertisement
So does the addition of Anne Frank’s father as co-writer only have financial implications?
