to watch Anne Frank on tv tonight and think.....

[ImsorryWilson]

there are worse things than pandemics.

Not exactly a novel thought but still.....

I agree with you in the main op with one huge difference. They could touch their loved ones and I think a lot of the fear and worry could be somewhat alleviated with being able to hug and kiss families. We can't.
But yes, on the whole we are so much luckier than she and millions of others were

I’ve recently read “The Boy Who Followed His Father Into Auschwitz” (spelling??)
I found it completely harrowing and really hard to read.
There are FAR worse things than having to stay home.

Is the sisters mother in law still alive?

Yes. She was 14 when she was rounded up and sent to Dachau. She escaped in what seems like an extraordinary adventure story, but was absolutely normal for many Jewish people at the time.

And as for the current pandemic effects on mental health - imagine 5 years of privation, threat of violent death, and uncertainty about the present and the future.

This is so true and something I think about often. My grandad is in his 90s and he tells me things about WW2 and I think wow. How are you so sprightly and upbeat? He has been through so much.

He thinks this pandemic is 'inconvenient' but it's not a war. He knows the bigger picture. He has seen dead bodies, he has seen starvation, torture and been through unbelievable things.

Staying in his flat, watching musicals and sorting his stamp collection in the warm, isn't the end of the world. He also received his vaccine last week and he was over the moon!

We are fighting our own war, but it is a war in a warm house with food with a television, I think people lose that perspective sometimes.

I really don’t think this is about being sanctimonious. Life is hard for a lot of us; I’m allowed to feel that lockdown is tough on my DDs (adopted, 11 and 8) and to hate having to cope with long Covid.

But it does give us some perspective to think how hard it must have been for Anne Frank, a teenager, to cope with being cooped up in the Annexe for two years, to say nothing of what happened to her and her family after that. It’s also encouraging that she retained her spirit through two years of being stuck in that one room, it shines through her diary. (I didn’t know it was on this evening. I’ll see if DD1 wants to watch it tomorrow.)

There’s no need to overthink a post like this. The OP was speaking for herself not judging anyone else.

It’s not about diminishing other struggles, just helpful to put it in perspective a bit, and realise how resilient we humans are

Yes @georgarina I think that’s what it’s been for me - an opportunity to reflect, and realise how bloody lucky we are. And how we will get through this.

I always think of the time of the Black Death rampaging across Europe. And what it must have felt like , not to know why your whole village is just wiped out.

@peboh if I remember Anne herself talked about her mother saying something like - think about those worse off than you _ & Anne argued that that didn't make her feel any better.
There was a film made (in Dutch I think its on You tube) about what exactly happened to Anne & her sister after. The irony was that Anne had a dream about her friend as a prisoner begging Anne - in fact when Anne & Margot got to Belsen her friend was in the foreigners section so she & her baby sister survived & she actually saw Anne through the fence & threw a little packet over - Anne probably died shortly after. There was actually a book about this of the women who were at both camps who knew Anne & her family & they ere able to say what happened
These are very tough to read I got this from the museum when we visited
Otto Frank later remarried another survivor - she had a daughter about the same age as Anne who also survived they knew the family in Amsterdam

What channel was this on op? Sounds like something I'd like to watch.

@Ponoka7

Are the people who survived allowed to complain, because after all there were people who had it worse? There is someone always having it worse.

Hard to find anything worse than that!

@QueenoftheAir I also think of the plague and how people then must have felt that life would never get back to normal or move forwards.

@WoolieLiberal

Exactly.

Precisely.

Worse things have happened within the lifetimes of some
People still alive now.

There have been some dreadful things in my lifetime, (born 1950s), but I'd have a hard time matching the thing the Nazis inflicted on the world.

I don't understand the purpose of your post.

Are you suggesting that it's not possible for people to be struggling and feeling quite desperate because the pandemic isn't as bad as the Holocaust?

Or that if only people realised the pandemic is not as bad as the Holocaust that they would stop feeling bad? Or that perhaps pointing that out is all the help they need to snap them out of their thinking (or indeed shut them up)?

I don't think anyone would dispute that the Holocaust was one of the worst things to ever happen to mankind - in large part because it was inflicted by fellow man.

I'm just not sure how that makes any difference to people who are struggling. Are you suggesting that mental health and social support can largely be replaced by telling people to just get on with it because The Holocaust was worse?! I actually find that offensive on multiple levels.

Well I see what you're saying and yes clearly my life is better and more privileged than that of Anne Frank or any other Holocaust victims.
But you're setting the bar quite low in terms of how much quality of life we should hope for.

this has made me laugh and laugh in a sort of hysterical fashion.

no we are not in the same boat as anne frank but oh my god-we are almost a year in to a PANDEMIC. Thousands of people are dying every single day, children can't go to school, families haven't seen each other for months and months and months. We are ALLOWED to find this hard! We don't HAVE to think that we are all lucky and having a lovely time.

Fucking yawn! I think it's ok to find this stuff hard, intolerable even, whilst knowing many others have and do have it harder.

Maybe people saying yabu are meaning you are unreasonable not to give the name of the programme and the channel!

Last year I went to a Holocaust memorial day commemoration. The candle was lit by someone who was in Auschwitz.

There will not be many more years when those who survived will be here to tell of the horrors, should they wish to.

@lockedownloretta you are loving a bit of exaggeration aren't you?

children can't go to school. --- they have been in school sep-December it's been 3 weeks!

families haven't seen each other for months and months and months. ---
Why?? We have been in this lockdown for three weeks, why haven't you seen your family? When it wasn't lockdown? Popped round to their garden or through the window, or dropped off their shopping or gone for a walk?

This is not as bad as the holocaust, or being in a war torn country, or being a refugee, or prisoner or war, which is what this thread is about, perspective from looking at what Anne Frank went through.

The rate of women being murdered through DV is up in lockdown I think?

Serious child abuse reports are up (and that's usually the tip of the iceberg) and it's been warned about increase in CSA since the start.

I find ops like this a bit trite. Not so bad for some, but some are having a really terrible time.

The lockdown really cannot be compared to the Holocaust or to famines in Africa or living through wars or the trenches of WW1. Most people are in their warm homes watching telly. It’s hardest for the self-employed but there are extremely generous government schemes to help. Missing a few weeks of school won’t ruin our kids - otherwise they’d never have the school holidays. Some kids find school an ordeal.

The worst part of the pandemic of course is that we are close to 100,000 dead in Britain. I have heard of several deaths of people I know or relatives of friends in the last few days and this is going to be grim. And we have seen how some of our fellow citizens really do not care about protecting others or even just keeping the health system functioning. But it’s not like systematic genocide by a country which was supposed to be civilised! It’s not even like sitting in a freezing bomb shelter night after night and rationing as my parents experienced.

not everybody's families live within 'popping' distance

my mum lives 3 hours away and my parents in law 5 hours away
popping round for a chat and a cup of tea is not an option

children are not in school now [unless they are in certain categories]

why are you tryuing to downplay what is happening?

i am NOT saying that it is as bad ad the holocaust-i am saying that using the holocaust as a measure of how bad things could be is setting the bar as low as it could go.

Just because we are not being slaughtered in the millions by fascists, doesn't mean that what we are going through is a walk in the park.

why aren't we allowed to feel bad about what is happening? why the constant comparing to tragic and horrific events in history?

I read an incredible book by the psychologist and holocaust survivor Dr Edith Eger and she was very clear that dismissing what people are going to by referring to someone who had it worse is a ghastly practice.

That doesn't mean of course that I don't remind myself how lucky we are (relatively speaking) but please don't use this comparison to dismiss the strains and loneliness of individuals

The OP shared this because it was something that helped her put things into perspective. I don't think she should be pilloried for that. She wasn't telling you how to feel about it.

I think it struck a chord because Anne Frank was sharing how she felt during a lockdown?

@KeyboardWorriers I agree with both the op and you.

You are right that absolutely anyone’s difficulties in this lockdown are deserving of sympathy.

For me, like op viewing this programme, at times I’ve found it really helpful to me personally to reflect what a small privation this is for me compared to what my family went through in Amsterdam in WWII

@lockedownloretta So if your mum lives 3 hours away you don't see her regularly anyway do you? And probably rely on phone calls and video chats to keep in contact, so how is this any different??

We can all feel a bit bored, but it's the exaggeration that is getting ridiculous.

A sense of perspective helps to get through times like this. It's one thing if you have lost a close loved one to covid. But the general whining because you haven't been able to go to a restaurant or have to wear a mask, or haven't seen 5 friends all at the same time, or I have to support my child with home learning, shows what little sense of perspective people have.

If your friends and family are alive you are lucky.
If you are in a warm house you are lucky
If you have eaten today you are lucky

Anne Frank, Syrian refugees, people living in slums in India, aids ridden children in orphanages in Africa have it worse than us sitting in watching bloody Netflix.

I read the book and was astounded by her resilience. She kept her sense of humour throughout - a remarkable young woman. She was in the secret annexe for over two years if I remember rightly.