c. 2004 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is Distinguished Visiting Professor at Saint Leo University.)

(UNDATED) My brother Bert and Anne Frank, the author of the world-famous diary, were both born 75 years ago in the summer of 1929, exactly seven weeks apart. However, their places of birth _ Pittsburgh, Pa., and Frankfurt, Germany _ decisively shaped their lives and speak volumes about 20th century history.

One child grew up in the safety and freedom of the United States. The other was born into the anti-Semitic cauldron of a Europe racing toward World War II and the Holocaust.

Both children moved from their birthplaces before they were 12. The Franks fled Nazi Germany for a hoped-for haven in Amsterdam, Holland. The Rudins moved to Alexandria, Va., because my father, called to U.S. Army active duty, was stationed at nearby Fort Belvoir.

It took two recent events to remind again me of those coincidences.

The first was visiting an extraordinary New York City exhibit featuring 70 black-and-white photographs taken by Anne’s father, Otto Frank, beginning in the late 1920s. Many of the pictures focus on Anne and her older sister, Margot, their young friends, the sisters’ grandmothers, parents, relatives, vacation locales and school portraits _ the usual stuff of family albums. The Frank photos are filled with smiling faces and peaceful backgrounds.

Young Anne, who wanted to be a film star, is radiant in several pictures. While Otto’s paternal shadow appears in some of the photos, the ominous shadows of the Nazi war against the Jews are notably absent.

It is clear Otto wanted no swastikas, Nazi flags or images of Hitler Youth members strutting in their uniforms to mar his photos. There is no hint of the anti-Semitic terror that threatened his family. The photos abruptly end in spring 1942 when the Frank family “disappeared” into a secret hiding place when Margot received her deportation order.

Taking cover with another Jewish family in an Amsterdam attic above Otto’s business offices was a desperate attempt by the Franks to escape the Nazi roundup of Jews _ all of whom were marked for mass murder. Tragically, the family was betrayed, their hiding place discovered, and the Franks were deported on Aug. 4, 1944.

Anne, her mother and sister were killed in Nazi death camps. Only Otto Frank, his photos and Anne’s remarkable diary, left behind in the hiding place, survived the war.

Sixty years after Anne wrote her secret thoughts, her diary remains a world classic. Thirty-one million copies have been published in more than 67 languages, and it is required reading in many high school and university classes. Anne’s diary was the basis of a Broadway play and a motion picture.

During the same week I attended the Frank photo exhibit, I began the bittersweet task of sorting out many photographs of my own family. Some of them also reached back to the 1920s.

There are pictures of my grandparents, my youthful parents walking on the Atlantic City, N.J., boardwalk during their honeymoon, and my brother and I as youngsters. I especially treasure a 1942 family photo of my father in his Army officer’s uniform, my mother, Bert, myself and our dog.

In yet another coincidence, that photo was taken in Alexandria, just weeks before the Franks were forced to hide from the Nazis in Holland. But, of course, unlike the Otto Frank photos, the Rudin family pictures do not suddenly end in 1942. The photo collection continues for six more decades. There are pictures of wives, husbands, children, nieces, nephews and grandchildren.

Bert became a dentist, married, also served in the Army and had four children. Sadly, he died of cancer at age 44 and never lived to see the birth of his eight grandchildren. There is a keen sense of both loss and joy in viewing photos of five generations of one’s family.

Surprisingly, I experienced similar feelings in looking at the Frank family photos. Even though Anne Frank was killed at the Bergen-Belsen death camp in early 1945, her words, her personality, her luminous visage will live forever.

The killing of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust can become a cold statistic. But Anne Frank, just one of those victims, is a single glowing personality who was brutally taken from us. Her father’s photos, while they only hint at what she could have become as a Jewish woman, are a constant tragic reminder of what was lost.

One final coincidence: The first entry in Anne’s diary was June 12, 1942, her 13th birthday. The last entry was Aug. 1, 1944, my brother’s 15th birthday.

DEA/PH END RUDIN