Impact Of The Nazism On Jews With Reference To The Diary Of Young Girl By Anne Frank: Legal And Psychological Perspective
Sreeja Banerjee, BA LLB, Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad
ABSTRACT
Just like any other thirteen-year-old girl, Anne Frank embarked upon the new journey of sharing her feelings and thoughts with her diary, whom she called “Kitty”. Readers find her diary entries, in the book titled, “The Diary of a Young Girl”, with her first entry being on 12th June 1942. The book enables the reader to take a close look at and analyse the growth of the adolescent author, who is a victim of the Anti-Jewish decrees passed by the German Government in Holland, and had to go hiding with her entire family to save their lives. Over a span of two years, Anne Frank, penned down her inner-most thoughts and feelings, the difficulties they had to face since they were Jews, instances about the political scenario of the ongoing war, along with a detailed description of their lives in hiding. It is as though she is representing and voicing out the sufferings of every Jew, and their tragic fate which was being pitted against the inscrutable forces of the politically superior, Germans. The readers get a clear insight into the survival war fought by every Jew, amidst the Nazi propaganda of their systematic extermination and the havocs of the Second World War. The diary entries suddenly come to a halt on 1st August 1944. Thus, it is presumed that the hiding Jews must be caught by the German police and taken to concentration camps. This research paper attempts to analyse how the various laws passed by the Germans that had a negative impact on the lives of the Jews, from the legal and psychological perspectives, and closely understand how it gradually led to the systematic extermination of the Jews.
Keywords: Anti-Jewish decrees, Antisemitism, Concentration camps, Fascism, Gestapo, Holocaust, Nazism
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