Anne Frank Gruener Quotes

Imagine your entire life changing, for the worse, because of how you identify. Imagine being beaten, abused, and starved because of how you identify. Imagine being a part of the six million plus Jews that got sent to concentration camps, only because they were Jewish. Imagine being part of the 700,000 Jews that survived. Yanek Gruener is a real holocaust survivor, and the protagonist of the novel, Prisoner B-3087, which shares his life story during the horrid events. Anne Frank was a young girl, infamous for her diary about her Holocaust experience, that shows the true devastation of it all. Anne and Yanek were both young Jewish children who experienced the horrors of the holocaust. Anne and Yanek may have lived in different areas of Europe

Anne and her family lived in a secret attic for over two years, which they called thee “Secret Annex.” Yanek and his family renovated and relocated into a pigeon coop for three years. However, Yanek had already been deported to his first camp by the time Anne lived in the Secret Annex. In both cases, they were forced to live in cramped, unsanitary conditions, and both had limited access to food and water. As Yanek described in his memoir, Prisoner B-3087, “We slept on the floor, three of us huddled together for warmth. We ate what we could scrounge, usually just a piece of bread and some water. We were always s hungry.” Similarly, In Anne’s diary, she normally complained about the food rations because of how many people she had to share

While Yanek lost motivation on occasion, he never let himself go. In the novel it states, “I will not let the Nazis control my mind. My thoughts are my own, and I choose to focus on hope and freedom.” Similarly, Anne writes in her diary, “I don’t want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death!”

In conclusion, the experiences of Anne Frank and Yanek Gruener are powerful examples of the devastating impact of power in the context of the Holocaust. Both Anne and Yanek were stripped of their basic human rights and reduced to mere numbers by the Nazis. They both lost the right to their humanity, they couldn’t be out in the open, hence hiding for several years. They were both young kids, who never got to enjoy their childhood because of their religion, and lastly, power is shown in both of their stories because they were powerless. They were dehumanized to the point that they were seen as utter garbage, that could be used beyond an unimaginable