During the period leading up to the Second World War, the persecution and the dangers facing the Jews worsened daily. They were forced to display the Star of David on their chests, forbidden to use public conveniences or to go out after dark, prohibited from participating in public affairs, their children forbidden to attend school and banned from all contact with Christians. The story of the Franks is typical.
Synopsis of the ballet
After the war Mr. Frank returns from concentration camp to the small annex where he, his wife and their two daughters, Margot and Anne, together with the van Daans, their son Peter and Mr. Dussel spent almost two years in hidding from Hitler’s persecution of the Jews. Some of the family possessions are still there, including the diary of his younger daughter Anne. Mr. Frank reads through Anne’s diary and relives the events of those days. He remembers her writing her diary. She writes of how her father decided they must all leave home and go into hiding after a relative received a summons from the SS. They manage to find refuge in a small annex in the attic of a house in Amsterdam. Anne writes about the cramped and crowded conditions with eight people living in close proximity, quarrels are frequent, sleep is difficult and they suffer from nightmares. But in spite of the lack of privacy and the continual fighting, she and the others do not lose their will to live. She records the shifting relationships between the families and the individuals within and without the families. Towards the end of the time in hiding her dreams are of Peter.
The dinner table is prepared. It remains so while elsewhere many die. Anne dreams perhaps for the last time of a better world as she regards her new self – her recent womanhood which cannot be fulfilled.
Comments from Mauricio Wainrot on the ballet Anne Frank
(from the English National Ballet program)
“In my work I used images from Anne’s diary and also statements from wye witnesses who knew the inhabitants of the annex. The only survivor was Otto Frank. My ballet deigns when he returns to the annex a few months after the end of the Second World War.
My research for Anne Frank bought me back to my own history full as it is of anecdotes and experiences that have been with me since childhood. It also led me to the history of nearly all my relatives who died in Europe – who knows where – under the same circumstances as the Franks the van Daans, the Dussels and all the other millions who perished – all sacrifices of intolerance.”
