by Nancy Linenkugel
Contributor
Who said this:
“One of the many questions that has often bothered me is why women have been, and still are, thought to be so inferior to men. . . . Fortunately, education, work and progress have opened women’s eyes. . . . Modern women want the right to be completely independent! What I condemn is our system of values and the men who don’t acknowledge how great, difficult, but ultimately beautiful women’s share in society is.”
Who comes to mind — Gloria Steinem? Hillary Clinton? Bella Abzug?
Those words were written in 1944 by now well-known Anne Frank in her diary when she was 15, just 52 days before the family’s hiding place was discovered by the Nazis on August 4, 1944, and she along with everyone hiding was taken to concentration camps. Anne later perished in the Bergen-Belsen camp 60 years ago on March 15, 1945, just two months before the camp was liberated. If Anne had survived World War II, she would be age 85 today and possibly still alive.
August 4 was also the birthday of Raoul Wallenberg, born in 1912 and only 32 when Anne perished. He was a Swedish humanitarian who saved more than 30,000 Jews during the war by issuing protective documents and securing the release of Jews from deportation trains. He also died at the too-young age of 35, in prison as a result of his selfless efforts.
Anne was imprisoned in a concentration camp and died there in 1945. Raoul was imprisoned in a criminal prison in 1945 and died two years later in 1947. These two lights were extinguished so prematurely; our world has been in slightly more darkness ever since.
[Sr. Nancy Linenkugel is a Sylvania Franciscan sister and chair of the department of Health Services Administration at Xavier University, Cincinnati Ohio.]