the boy who loved anne frank

"i cried for the second murder of my parents, the one i had committed by silence."

this novel is about the power of self-inflicted guilt, about coming to terms with the past, about a man who survived, and tried to reinvent himself, to erase his past, but never succeeded, because tormented as he was by memories of the past, history eventually caught up with him, forcing him to seek reconciliation with his own tortured soul.

"it was merely that trying to undo the past was just another way of living in the past. i was interested in the future."

i have asked myself again and again whether it wouldn't have been better if we hadn't gone into hiding, if we were dead now and didn't have to go through this misery-the diary of a young girl by anne frank

must the living live in the shadow of the dead?
must the living live with the guilt of living?

isn't there something we must do to pay for being alive?- meyer levin

must the present be burdened by the past?
must the past be present in the future?

there is no point in wasting away in mourning, no point in brooding. we have to go on living, go on building- otto frank

it left a deep imprint in me, although it would never quite be of the same magnitude or significance as the one the war had left in peter van pels, if he had survived.

a man's biography is also history- the american history of anne frank's diary by judith e. doneson

to what extent do we remain obligated to the world even when we have been expelled from it?- men in dark times by hannah arendt

if all men are good at heart, there never really was an Auschwitz; nor is there any possibility that it may recur.- the ignored lesson of anne frank by bruno bettelheim

i guess time may flow, but we would be naive to think we could leave it behind just like that. we can never outrace the past, maybe because we are running in circles, while it just sits there, waiting for us to run into it again.

memories may fade like old photographs, but they will still be there.