14 August 2007
The Jewish woman who, as a child, was Anne Frank's best friend has warned that the shadow of anti-Semitism still hangs over Europe. Speaking at a press conference to mark the translation of her memoir, ‘My Name is Anne, She Said, Anne Frank’ into English, Jacqueline Van Maarsen, 78, said "I am not optimistic. There is a current of anti-Semitism. It is not as bad as it used to be, but I don't think it will ever stop. I don't think children know much about the Holocaust. That's why a book like my mine is important."
Van Maarsen survived the war because her mother was a Catholic and managed to persuade an official to change her family's papers. She was the model for Franks’ letters addressed to the fictional ‘Jopie’. She said that she had been reluctant to publish her own account but decided to do so in 1990 after a number of false claims were made about the authenticity of Anne Frank's diary. "I felt I must do something. I wrote for my friend who couldn't write for herself."
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