Anne Frank Remembered

The first half, that deals with the Frank family hiding in the upper floors of Mr. Frank's business, is very well done but does not really add anything to what we already know, especially if we have seen George Stevens' film or read Anne Frank's diary. It is when this very sobering documentary follows the Franks to the death camps of Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen (just to type the names induces chills) that the film becomes terrifyingly riveting and, for me, eye opening. There is a protective temptation with this particular family to freeze them at that moment when their hiding place is discovered so that they can somehow go from discovery to immortality, without having to undergo the intervening horror. Well, director John Blair will have none of that as he slowly guides us through various Nazi hellscapes to see what befell not only the Franks but millions of Jews, accompanied by stark images of barracks, guard towers and corpses and the calm, somber, and at times devastated voices of the death camp survivors. A quite shattering experience. A minus.

PS...Almost forgot to mention Kenneth Branagh's very good narration, which is serious without being stagey. Only time I've ever liked Branagh.

The Diary of Anne Frank is the second best-selling nonfiction book in the world, and for good reason. Nonetheless, sitting through this documentary about her life, which fills in some of the details where the diary left off, I thought, "Just another documentary about Anne Frank." I found it to be competent but not extraordinary. That was my complacent attitude because I was already well aware of the story of Anne Frank; most of what the documentary had to tell me wasn't news to me.

Everything changed, though, when I got to the end of the documentary---when I saw the motion picture footage of Anne Frank. The emotional impact of seeing this footage, only a second or so long, made everything that came before it a thousand times more real---but not just everything that was in the documentary; everything I had previously known about Anne Frank suddenly became more real to me, more personal. I'd always been moved by her story, but when I saw that footage, what I felt was stronger and deeper and more profound than any other film experience of my life. (I knew beforehand that this documentary contained live footage of Anne Frank, and I'd even seen the footage in a movie review on television, but seeing it in the context of the documentary was a completely different experience. It's not likely that my mentioning it here will spoil it for anyone.)

I realize now that many people still don't know the story of Anne Frank; it's discouraging at times to be witness to this kind of ignorance. I think to myself, "How could someone NOT know the story of Anne Frank?" This being the case, though, ANNE FRANK: REMEMBERED, along with reading her diary, is the best place to start. It's a story that everyone should know.

Your comment is completely false, her diary has been proved to be authentic. Don't know why there are people like you who lie and want to say otherwise. Suppose every site has it's trolls and idiots.

Anyway this is a brilliant and moving documentary that should be seen by all. Includes interviews of people that knew Anne Frank and members of her family.

Also try and see the BBC's Diary of Anne Frank which is a brilliant 5 part mini series that follows her time in hiding.

The film Anne Frank: The whole story is quite good too and deals with her life before hiding, during hiding and after capture.

Anne Frank Remembered interviews a number of people who knew Anne, either before or after she was sent to the concentration camps. Miep Gies, one of the quartet who concealed the Frank family from the Nazis in Amsterdam for over a year, offers extensive recollections of Anne, her father, and the war. Anne's lone surviving relative, Bernd Elias, expresses his feelings about his cousin. Excerpts from 1976 and 1979 interviews with Otto Frank (who died in 1980) are included. Together with many other testimonials, these form a compelling picture of events not covered by Anne's diary. Anne Frank Remembered is as important for what it will preserve for posterity as for the story it tells today. The message emerging from the Holocaust has always been "Never Forget", and films of this quality make it impossible not to remember. If the story of each of Hitler's victims was told with the sensitivity and power of Anne Frank Remembered, there would not be enough buckets in the world to hold all the tears.

The documentary is excellent, except for one element - the narration says "Polish death camps" - once and for all, please get this right - there were NO POLISH death camps! Poland was occupied by Germany and the death camps were German DEATH CAMPS SET UP BY THE Nazis! This is an important piece of history that is surprisingly perpetuated in a variety of printed and film material."Usage of the term has been condemned as insulting by the Polish foreign minister Adam Daniel Rotfeld in 2005, who also alleged that it—intentionally or unintentionally—shifted the responsibility for the construction or operation of the camps from the German to the Polish people." (quoting from Wikipedia) Even Obama had to apologize for using this term as late as May 2012. This wrong term must NOT be used anymore. Death camps were NAZI CAMPS, located in Nazi-occupied Poland!