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AIBU?

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Original poster

Anne Frank - should people have heard about her?

349 replies

MilkTrayLimeBarrel · 18/01/2020 18:32

Chatting with DH about where to go for a city break this spring. I suggested Amsterdam - lots to see, including tulips, canals, bikes and Anne Frank's house. He asked who she was? AIBU to think that everybody should have heard of her and what she stood for/did? I couldn't believe that he honestly had no idea who she was!

OP posts:
sweeneytoddsrazor · 18/01/2020 20:40

People don't just learn in school though. They learn from reading, tv, internet, general chit chat all manner of things. There are plenty of things I have never studied as such but that doesn't mean I haven't heard of various famous or infamous people. I have never studied American history or the Civil Rights movement for example but I know who MLK, Rosa Parks and Malcolm X are. I havent studied Russian history but I know who Stalin, Lenin, Catherine and Nicholas are. Haven't studied Chinese but I know Chairman Mao and so on. The history I studied at school for exam level was the Industrial revolution and the Aztecs but that is certainly nowhere near the extent of my history knowledge.

LadyMonicaBaddingham · 18/01/2020 20:41

YANBU, but education is a funny thing... My (otherwise very intelligent) husband had never heard of Mao Tse-Tung..!

Hollyhead · 18/01/2020 20:42

I think it’s surprising but doesn’t necessarily make him any less of a person. She’s only famous because she diarised her experience. There are many others who did far braver things during WW2 who remain unknown.

theflushedzebra · 18/01/2020 20:42

I don't know how anyone in the UK couldn't have heard of her tbh - so many cultural references to her story, her book, tv adaptations.

I just double checked with my 12 & 15yr old, and yes, they knew all about her. They looked at me funny like it was a trick question tbh.

They didn't know who Karl Marx was - but had heard of Lenin - but DH laughed heartily at the Cambridge economics student not knowing Grin and thinks that must be a wind-up Grin (not troll hunting Grin )

2MapleMuffins · 18/01/2020 20:44

Not a wind up.

Helmetbymidnight · 18/01/2020 20:45

'i dont know- we didnt do it at school' is fascinating in its stupidity.

Bowerbird5 · 18/01/2020 20:45

I was educated in a mixture of schools and countries and I learnt about Anne Frank. Read her diary in my first year of Secondary school and learnt about her at another school in history.

Books about Anne Frank have been chosen for reading and as Guided Reading books in Primary school.

Try to go early when it isn’t as busy. It is a very emotional experience.

Other things to do:
The full trip on the canal, you see a lot of the city and if you chose a commentary journey you learn a lot about the different buildings and bridges.
Van Gogh Museum - an amazing selection of his work.
Rijksmuseum - art and history. Amazing collection including Rembrandt and Vermeer paintings.

We stayed at The Park which was walking distance from the centre of the city. I loved Amsterdam. Amazing mime artists and musicians too.

I hope you have a great time.

2MapleMuffins · 18/01/2020 20:46

My SIl never really did anything with her degree and opnely admitted that she only did economics because it was expected she do 'something'.

She has never worked, and is not that interested in things generally.

Weedsnseeds1 · 18/01/2020 20:46

I wasn't taught WW2 at school mid eighties, but somehow managed to stumble a cross WW2 and Anne Frank at an early age.
We did the Arab Israeli Conflict for O level and American West 1840 - 1895, which included Joseph Smith / Brigham Young (and the homesteaders, barbed wire and refrigerated freight).
A friend tgat I grew up with astonished me a few years ago by never having heard of Concorde. Not entirely sure what they thought the reason every door and window in the house rattled at the same time every night was?
Anne Frank is significant as her story is documented by her, whereas other children left no trace, other than maybe an oral family history or a number in a ledger somewhere.
Violette Szabo is another that people don't seem familiar with.
Also Frank Foley, known and commemorated by a statue and a road in his home town, but little known elsewhere.

BananaTaffy · 18/01/2020 20:46

YANBU, but education is a funny thing... My (otherwise very intelligent) husband had never heard of Mao Tse-Tung..!

Omg! Who on earth hasn't heart if Mao Tse-Tung!!!

whistles casually

x2boys · 18/01/2020 20:47

Some people do have gaps in their general knowledge I used to work with someone who no idea who Tutenkhamun was can't remember how it came up though.

theflushedzebra · 18/01/2020 20:47

I believe you, 2MapleMuffins, honest. It's too funny, though.

Bluetrews25 · 18/01/2020 20:48

I'm in 50s and chose to do french revolution (nice teacher) rather than WW2 (nasty teacher) at O level time.
But Anne Frank's story was told on Blue Peter every year, it felt like! Did DH watch Magpie instead of BP?

SpaghettiSharon · 18/01/2020 20:48

@PositiveVibez, that's my mum's biggest bugbear - the 'before my time' argument! It's so lame and ignorant.

I can't believe there are British adults who don't know who Anne Frank is - but then judging by the shit that many people watch on tv now, maybe I shouldn't be so surprised Sad.

2MapleMuffins · 18/01/2020 20:49

Thanks zebra, I know it seems extraordinary!

OneForMeToo · 18/01/2020 20:49

I’ve heard of the. And but know nothing about her really. History at school was lacking and honestly my interests are more in sciences than history of the world. I’d pick to read a medical book over a Book about the war or someone’s diary.

TheDarkPassenger · 18/01/2020 20:50

We didn’t get taught about her at school either, but I learned about her off my own back

BananaTaffy · 18/01/2020 20:50

My favorite surprising knowledge gap is the amount of people online who were shocked to find out the Titanic was real.

londonrach · 18/01/2020 20:50

@LadyMonicaBaddingham. Sorry silly here having done history degree but whos.. Mao Tse-Tung.

TatianaLarina · 18/01/2020 20:50

I dunno it’s a bit like not having heard of Hitler.

SchadenfreudePersonified · 18/01/2020 20:51

Never quite understood why her story, over and above the 6 million, caught the imagination.

  1. Because she was a very articulate and intelligent young girl who left a detailed diary of her experiences in hiding, which her father was given after the war. Because it was so well written, when it was published it was suitable for the general population to read - not just for historians

  2. Because she was betrayed to the Germans when she could have had a chance of surviving the war

  3. Because she died of typhus in Belsen, after suffering horribly, only weeks before the camp was liberated

  4. Because she symbolised ALL of those young wasted lives lost in the horror of those camps

  5. Because one tortured young woman - with a name, and a photograph so we can put a face to her suffering, is easier to identify with, and sympathise with, than an anonymous mass of faceless, nameless souls (which tragically, most of the victims were).

  6. Because one such death is a tragedy and 6 million a statistic.

Pipandmum · 18/01/2020 20:51

My kids (14 and 16) know who she is. I do too and I grew up I the States.

SpaghettiSharon · 18/01/2020 20:52

@Hollyhead she's not known for her bravery though - she's known for her diary.

Melroses · 18/01/2020 20:52

I am early 50s and remember Anne Frank's father being on Blue Peter. Her story was often on television and I read her diary.

(We didn't do anything in school history - ours started before dinosaurs and finished at the end of the Stuart Period - O level covered 1700s and early 1800s)

theflushedzebra · 18/01/2020 20:52

@LadyMonicaBaddingham. Sorry silly here having done history degree but whos.. Mao Tse-Tung.

Chairman Mao.