Family Artifacts
Jun. 26th, 2007 07:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prosodicI just read this article that Anne Frank's cousin finally gave up some Frank family artifacts that he's been storing in his attic for years. They are now in the custody of the Anne Frank Huis in Amsterdam.
It kind of makes me sad that it took so long for these things to come to light. They seem like such an important part of Anne Frank's history. It's a wonder they weren't donated a long time ago.
(This is kind of like when my great great uncle - a professional baseball player who was coached by Babe Ruth - had priceless baseball artifacts stored in his basement, which could've been donated to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He passed away 6 years ago, and I have no idea what became of all his stuff.)
Anyway, I've always had a fondness for Anne Frank, ever since I got a copy of her diary for Christmas when I was...*thinks*...about 12 years old, I guess. Her birthday is the day after mine, so I felt an immediate connection to her when I read her diary. It's been years since I've read it. I suppose it's about time I pick it up again.
In contrast with her diary, my diary when I was 12 was much less mature. I destroyed it a few years ago. It gave no insight into my life, other than what I ate everyday and how I dressed. And there would be the occasional mention of a person that I cannot recall to memory. I think the only diaries I bothered keeping were from my high school years up to now. They are certainly more interesting, philosophical and deep.
My childhood artifacts were once in a box in my parents' attic, and I distinctly remember going through the box and getting rid of things, especially if they had no sentimental meaning: the certificates for academic achievement, report cards, medals I earned for choral competitions, drill team ribbons and my varsity letter (dance squad, not ROTC), scrapbooks pasted up with endless photos of my teenage celebrity crushes, silly poetry I wrote during French class.
Oddly enough, I don't miss these things. I know that I once had them, and that is enough. My memories of them are more important than the objects themselves.
It's funny that now I want to record everything. I have two blogs and several online photo albums. I have paper journals and real photo albums. When I first moved here, I put a box in a drawer and threw in all the scraps from our travels: ticket stubs, city maps, brochures, etc. I thought, rather ambitiously and unrealistically, that I would take all these things and make them into a scrapbook. Never mind the fact that I DON'T scrapbook. So I threw out all that stuff too. And that's okay. Because I meticulously record most every detail of our travels through my writing and photography.
I remember when I was a kid and we went to visit Uncle Tot. I really didn't know him. He was my great-grandma's brother and a local celebrity. You could knock on his door, even if you were a total stranger, and he would invite you to sit out on his porch for some lemonade and a discussion about the golden days of baseball. And if he enjoyed your company, he would take you down into his basement, which was a wonderland - the shining star of his collection was Babe Ruth's glove. I'm not even much of a baseball fan, but I remember being filled with awe. I was aware of being in the presence of something important...a museum in a modest basement. I hope those artifacts have found their way somewhere in the public eye.
It kind of makes me sad that it took so long for these things to come to light. They seem like such an important part of Anne Frank's history. It's a wonder they weren't donated a long time ago.
(This is kind of like when my great great uncle - a professional baseball player who was coached by Babe Ruth - had priceless baseball artifacts stored in his basement, which could've been donated to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He passed away 6 years ago, and I have no idea what became of all his stuff.)
Anyway, I've always had a fondness for Anne Frank, ever since I got a copy of her diary for Christmas when I was...*thinks*...about 12 years old, I guess. Her birthday is the day after mine, so I felt an immediate connection to her when I read her diary. It's been years since I've read it. I suppose it's about time I pick it up again.
In contrast with her diary, my diary when I was 12 was much less mature. I destroyed it a few years ago. It gave no insight into my life, other than what I ate everyday and how I dressed. And there would be the occasional mention of a person that I cannot recall to memory. I think the only diaries I bothered keeping were from my high school years up to now. They are certainly more interesting, philosophical and deep.
My childhood artifacts were once in a box in my parents' attic, and I distinctly remember going through the box and getting rid of things, especially if they had no sentimental meaning: the certificates for academic achievement, report cards, medals I earned for choral competitions, drill team ribbons and my varsity letter (dance squad, not ROTC), scrapbooks pasted up with endless photos of my teenage celebrity crushes, silly poetry I wrote during French class.
Oddly enough, I don't miss these things. I know that I once had them, and that is enough. My memories of them are more important than the objects themselves.
It's funny that now I want to record everything. I have two blogs and several online photo albums. I have paper journals and real photo albums. When I first moved here, I put a box in a drawer and threw in all the scraps from our travels: ticket stubs, city maps, brochures, etc. I thought, rather ambitiously and unrealistically, that I would take all these things and make them into a scrapbook. Never mind the fact that I DON'T scrapbook. So I threw out all that stuff too. And that's okay. Because I meticulously record most every detail of our travels through my writing and photography.
I remember when I was a kid and we went to visit Uncle Tot. I really didn't know him. He was my great-grandma's brother and a local celebrity. You could knock on his door, even if you were a total stranger, and he would invite you to sit out on his porch for some lemonade and a discussion about the golden days of baseball. And if he enjoyed your company, he would take you down into his basement, which was a wonderland - the shining star of his collection was Babe Ruth's glove. I'm not even much of a baseball fan, but I remember being filled with awe. I was aware of being in the presence of something important...a museum in a modest basement. I hope those artifacts have found their way somewhere in the public eye.
