Anne Frank was 15 years old when she died in a Nazi concentration camp. Yet her words outlived her body. Words scribbled in a diary from a secret attic in Amsterdam became one of the world’s most powerful mirrors.
This summer, I found myself in Amsterdam for Mindvalley U. By chance, my Airbnb was on the street next to Anne Frank’s house. Each morning, I’d step outside and see the same canals, the same cobblestones, and the same rooftops Anne may have glimpsed in stolen moments when she dared peek out from her hiding place.
A few mornings later, I opened the news and froze. The Diary of Anne Frank had just been banned in Florida schools under new book-ban laws. Imagine that. In 2025, one of the most important human documents ever written—the testimony of a teenage Jewish girl hiding from Nazi genocide—was deemed “inappropriate” for children to read.
The synchronicity hit me hard. I was standing before the building where those words were written. Words that survived Anne, even though she did not. Words that outlived war, genocide, and cruelty—only to be silenced again today by politicians who fear truth more than hatred.
And this got me thinking.
If Anne Frank were alive today, what would she say about America? About Israel & Gaza?
What I’m about to share may feel uncomfortable—but Anne’s words demand we face discomfort.
Who was Anne Frank
Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt in 1929. When the Nazis rose to power, her family fled to Amsterdam, hoping to escape persecution. In 1942, when deportations began, they went into hiding in a small annex behind her father’s office. For over two years, Anne, her sister Margot, her parents Otto and Edith, and four others lived in silence, relying on the courage of Dutch friends who smuggled them food and news.
Anne wasn’t just a symbol. She was a teenager—funny, sharp, sometimes rebellious, and always observant. She dreamed of being a journalist. She once wrote, “I want to go on living even after my death.” And, tragically, she did—not through her life, but through her words.
In August 1944, they were betrayed. The Gestapo stormed the annex. The Franks were deported to Westerbork, then Auschwitz, and finally Anne and Margot to Bergen-Belsen. In early 1945, both sisters died of typhus—just weeks before liberation. Anne was 15.
Only Otto Frank survived. After the war, Miep Gies, one of the helpers, handed him Anne’s diary. He published it, fulfilling her dream. Today, it has sold over 30 million copies and been translated into more than 70 languages.
Anne’s body was silenced. But her voice became immortal.
Anne’s words in today’s world
Anne once wrote:
“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor, helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”
She was describing Nazi roundups in Amsterdam.
But doesn’t that sound eerily like ICE raids in America today? Parents taken in the middle of the night. Children left crying, bewildered, abandoned. Different time, different uniforms—but the same cruelty.
Anne also wrote:
“We are chained to one spot, without rights, a thousand obligations… waiting for the inevitable end.”
That could be the voice of Gaza today. Entire families locked in. Starved. Bombed. Denied freedom of movement. Children asking, “Why must we suffer simply because of who we are?”
Her words, written 80 years ago, read like dispatches from the present. History is not past. It is a loop—unless we break it.
A hard, controversial mirror
Anne’s diary teaches us to look at cruelty honestly, no matter where it comes from. And one thing history proves: atrocities don’t start with bullets. They start with words.
Dehumanizing language always comes first.
So let’s talk about Gaza, as uncomfortable as this may seem.
Consider the echoes:
- Nazi leadership (1943): Heinrich Himmler at Posen: “I am referring here to the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people….”
- Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (2023): On the Palestinian town of Huwara: “[Huwara] should be wiped out. I think the State of Israel should do it.”
- Hitler, Mein Kampf: Jews as “the typical parasite, a sponger who, like an infectious bacillus, keeps spreading.” Nazi propaganda routinely cast Jews as vermin.
- Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (2023): Announcing a siege of Gaza: “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel… We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”
- Nazi propaganda (Goebbels echoing Hitler): Jews blamed collectively for war, threatened with “extermination.”
- Israeli President Isaac Herzog (2023): “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible….” — words widely criticized as endorsing collective punishment.
- Nazi euphemisms: “Evacuation” as code for extermination.
- Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu (2023): Suggesting a nuclear strike on Gaza was “one of the options.”
Different contexts. Different scales. But the same pattern.
Dehumanize → Justify → Destroy.
Anne Frank’s words remind us: when we hear this language, it is never “just rhetoric.” It is the runway to cruelty.
You see, cruelty always begins the same way: when leaders tell us to fear “the other.”
Fear the immigrant.
Fear the refugee.
Fear the neighbor who looks different.
Fear the people beyond your border.
That is the oldest political trick in the book. And it works—unless we refuse to buy it.
Anne Frank didn’t write her diary so we could cry in museums. She wrote it so we could recognize her suffering in others—and have the courage to stop it.
Why giving people a chance matters
This message hit me with even greater force because, while in Amsterdam, I also had a chance encounter.
I bumped into a young Syrian man who once worked for me back in 2016. At the time, he was a refugee in Malaysia. He and his friend had escaped a country torn apart by war. One had seen his home blown to rubble. The other had lost a brother when a bomb fell on the very place his brother was resting.
Both had lived through horrors most of us can barely imagine. And yet, when I met them, I didn’t just see refugees. I saw brilliant young minds. I saw hope, determination, and resilience.
That year, I had an idea for a new learning model called Quest and needed someone to build the app. These two young Syrians built it in record time. That app became the Mindvalley app—today used by millions worldwide and even featured in 200,000 Apple stores on the iPad.
Yes, our app was built by Syrians. Yes, it was built by refugees who were given a chance.
Anne never got her chance. But when we give people that chance, look what can happen.
This is why I am so adamant about this message. When politicians tell you to fear refugees, or immigrants, or minorities, they’re not just lying. They are robbing humanity of its future.
The rule we must all live by
If there’s one rule we must all live by, it’s this:
The moment a leader tells you to fear refugees, minorities, or immigrants, you are looking at a tyrant.
Do not believe them. Do not reward their fear with your silence—or your vote.
Because fear divides. And division always leads to cruelty.
What the world needs now is unity.
Unity across stripes, colors, races, and ethnicities. Unity across cultures, religions, and especially across borders.
Because the only way we solve the greatest challenges facing humanity—from climate change to war to poverty—is to remember this truth:
We are one humanity.
And kindness cannot stop at the invisible lines of race, religion, or border.
The higher vision
Anne Frank once wrote:
“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
That may be the most extraordinary line ever written. She believed it while hiding from people who wanted her dead.
If Anne could believe in human goodness then, we can believe in it now.
Let’s prove her right.
Let’s choose compassion over cruelty.
Let’s stand up for one another across borders.
Let’s silence the voices of fear not by shouting back but by choosing unity again and again.
Because Anne’s diary isn’t just a warning.
It’s a torch.
And it’s in our hands now.
So here’s what we can collectively do.
Stand for unity. Across color. Across race. Across borders. Across religions.
When you hear fear, answer with love.
When you hear division, answer with solidarity.
When a politician uses scapegoating, vote the other way.
The only way to honor Anne is to prove her right—that humanity is good at heart.
And that goodness becomes real when we act.
Because history doesn’t just happen to us. It is written by our choices—and our silence.
I’d like to hear from you: Drop a comment below—let’s create a conversation around unity, compassion, and what it means to stand for humanity in our time.
1,231 Responses
Vishen, I read your words and I weep. The spectre of “othering” is tearing at our collective souls. If they come for our neighbours who are different, when will it be our turn? Thank you for ripping the veil from our eyes. We are faced with the uncomfortable choice of facing the horror and speaking out and fighting back, or averting our eyes, clapping our hands to our ears refusing to listen, burying our heads in the sand. What will be our personal tipping point?
Thank you for your message, reminder and invitation. We have the power to unite or divide; we can choose. Choice is our power. I decide to look through my eyes, feel with my heart, and process through my mind.
Hi Vishen,
Thanks so much for your summary from your trip to Amsterdam. After listening to the individual recently rearrested by “ICE” in Baltimore on the radio yesterday, I realized a deliberate shadow force (in the guise of US leadership) reemerging again in the hearts and minds of individuals (affected with hate, bigotry, fear, and confusion), attempting to distract and divide the minds of the public. Many of whom are not listening, lack awareness, or are completely ignorant of what may result from this type of prolonged action in the US, and/or any other global community in this world. A reoccurrence of dark history (is occurring), where leader(s) are using political systems to (erase), dehumanize, enslave, murder, and remove dignity, using “institutional” human hunting, as tools for control. My own relatives were severely impacted by violent organizations, e.g., such as the Ku Klux Klan, who acted without restraint, blatantly murdering innocent souls without recourse…right here in the U.S. Eventually, the comfort of unchallenged “power”, “greed”, and “ignored rights” of individuals will affect (any/everyone) at will by (untouchable people). Everyone is game at this time. Protection of civil and legal rights, incurred on the backs of deceased and injured people everywhere DEMANDS immediate attention…oppressive systems MUST be challenged and racial inequality addressed and RESISTED!!!
I was raised by a woman who taught us, children, that we were people of the planet Earth. Not from Aylmer, Québec, not from Canada, not from North America, but from the planet Earth. And being so, to treat every person as a brother or a sister, with kindness and openess. Being taught so, I could never see another human being different from what I was. And I was shocked the first time I could understand that some people didn’t see it this way. I feel helpless, even today, when I read things or see people being cruel towards others whatever the reason they give themselves for doing so. These cruel persons are in reality so weak and coward. And I thank you Vishen for being the human you are. Thank you a million times. Love. Geneviève
I must confess I usually pass your emails, not because they’re not interesting, because I’m always on the run or leaving it for later, sorry about that. But this one just caught my eye. I just came here to say thank you. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, your personal experience, and most of all for not remaining in silence. I’m from Portugal and things are not as bad as in the US, but the discriminatory talk about immigration is happening as well. The fascists are rising and we (sane people) are becoming more and more concerned. We must not give into fear and we must not remain in silence. We must do better, be better, we must bring love and unity. Thank you for your important email.
I am so happy to have received your email Vishen. I’ve been following Mindvalley almost since it’s inception when I was living in France.
I live in my native Greece now and I am horrified at the staunch support of Israel’s policies by our government.
At the same time, there is a strong and growing opposition to the horrors that Israel is committing in Palestine as expressed in so many demonstrations all over the country.
On the other hand, having experienced the influx of thousands of refugees and immigrants at a time of acute economic crisis and overtaken by the fear of the other, a large part of the people here express deeply anti-immigrant sentiments. It is very hard to hold a meaningful conversation with most of them about the causes of mass migration, historically and currently. It is as if to try understand why people from Asia and Africa land on our shores would be tantamount to capitulating to a barbarian invasion.
Contradictory political attitudes, confusion, fear and bigoted perspectives are also fuelled by the local media and the social ones. At times it feels very lonely as it is terrifying to be exposed in the cacophony of fear and hatred.
Your words, from the first to the very last one, resonated fully with my thoughts about the current state of the Western world.
We need more conversations like this one to inspire meaningful action.
We are also, now more than ever, in need of enlightened leaders in this country and in the world as a whole.
And we need a new political and social paradigm, one that will replace the presumed inevitability of competition, antagonism and domination, with one founded on compassion, solidarity and cooperation as the natural traits of humanity.
Thanks for helping shift global thinking.
I am from Poland and we have always had great respect for the murdered Jews, but when the victims become the executioners, we cannot remain silent and the governments fail us by burying their heads in the sand despite the protests of citizens.
Oh, you care so much about the Gazans? Then you won’t mind giving Germany Silesia back, right?
Dear Vishen –
As an admirer of yours who has benefited from Mindvalley, I am compelled to respond to your blog related to Anne Frank. Without elaborating on the historical context, which you aknowledged was not your intent either, it is obvious that you have purposefully or unwittingly misrepresented the tragedy that is the Gaza War. You drew parallels between quoted Israeli parlamentarians and Nazi doctrine, ignoring that the former has no part in policy in contrast to the actual Nazis. In addition, you gave no consideration to the instigators of this war and their swore aims, which are all supremisist genocidal in nature. I strongly recommend that you re-examine your misuse of the message Anne Frank left in her diary
As a Floridian, I want to add some missing context to the issue of the book bans in Florida. The Florida Department of Education has had Anne Frank’s diary on the recommended summer reading list (for 6th – 8th graders) at least since 2020, and it remains there to this day.
Some individual school districts did ban the 2018 publication: “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation,” which was presented in comic book format, as some parents and legislators took issue with some of the illustrations they felt were of a sexual nature and inappropriate for children. I’ve not seen it, so I have no idea as to whether it’s a fair criticism.
Thank you Vishen , this is so true about unity across borders, religions and colours.
It is the only way to peace , we are all one people , one earth.
Let’s get into the habit of love.
Deeply moving conversation, thank you to everyone that joins team life.
“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. But I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.” — Neil Armstrong
Vishen, I say this with the deepest respect and love for your work and the Mindvalley platform. You have created a space for conscious human beings who want to show up in the world in a new and better way. With that comes a responsibility for how and what we share.
In times like these, when so much energy is spent on division, it’s important to pause and reflect on how we can truly bring about the change we want to see. Not thru battles of “old”, fighting never ending political wars, but showing up authentically using our inner voice, and resonance to connect thru our hearts for the change we want to see.
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Anne Frank’s Diary in Florida Schools
• Title specifically removed: Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation, a graphic novel by Ari Folman, illustrated by David Polonsky. This is not the original Diary of a Young Girl, but a stylized, illustrated retelling.
Sources: AP News, National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC)
• Location of removal: Vero Beach High School, Indian River County, Florida, following an objection from Moms for Liberty (Indian River chapter).
Sources: AP News, Katie Couric Media
• Scope: This was a localized decision, not a statewide removal. The original diary remains available in that district’s libraries.
Sources: AP News, KSL, Florida Department of Education
Grounds for Removal
• Concerns that the graphic adaptation minimized the Holocaust and was not the full diary. It was labeled a “biography,” suggesting an interpretive spin rather than Anne Frank’s authentic words.
• Two scenes were deemed sexually suggestive:
1. Anne Frank walking in a park with classical nude statues.
2. A moment where she proposes showing her friend their breasts.
• Indian River County policy allows the school principal to make the initial decision; appeals can be submitted to a district-level committee, but no appeal was noted in this case.
Sources: AP News, NCAC, Katie Couric Media
Summary Table
Question Finding
Which edition? Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation (2018)
Scope of removal? Only at Vero Beach High School (Indian River County)
Reason for removal? Sexualized imagery + interpretive adaptation (not original diary)
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Anne Frank’s diary was never meant to divide us — it was written to bear witness and remind us of our shared humanity, even in the darkest times. She found hope in a patch of sky and strength in a tree outside her window. Though surrounded by hate, she still believed people were “good at heart.” That conviction was her act of courage — and it challenges us today not to let fear or division win.
If we carry her voice forward, her diary does more than preserve the past — it lights a path toward the world we all long for: peaceful, safe, and whole, for all beings.
In closing, the origin of the calls for ‘banning” books came at the request of parents in many states who consider the books to be age and content inappropriate (sexual, pornographic, pedophilia “grooming”, and gender questioning with graphic detail. I have a list if anyone is interested in further research.
I am very touched by this written words. As a Latinamerican guy who has seen his people suffering, I deeply understand the powerless feeling of seeing injustice and not being able to do something about it, but knowledge and learning is the key, so we can do something about it in the future, and that’s what Mind valley always profess and I am proud of being part of the leaning process they offer.
Your reflection moved me deeply. The parallels between Anne Frank’s words and today’s injustices were sobering and necessary. Thank you for reminding us that history repeats when we silence truth and dehumanize others. Your story about the Syrian developers was especially powerful. It’s proof that compassion unlocks brilliance and that unity is our greatest strength. I’ll carry Anne’s torch in my own work: building systems that empower, stories that heal, and choices that unite
Hi Vishen, I’m sure you posted the Ann Frank story with a good heart: I’ve been following you from the edge, since your LifeBook series, & listen to most of what you share online.
There is a lot of misinformation out there, posted deliberately to change our perspective because our algorithm tells them you are ‘anti’ – whatever it is they are promoting. It’s called Psychographics. The source of the algorithm.
Skeptical of textbooks or republished diaries, in the same way as I’m skeptical of words I recognise from an AI source: the style & language used by AI in this context, which makes me skeptical of everything I now see in your post.
As a Social Constructivist, I’ve learned who to believe today, compared with who I believed growing up in an apartheid South Africa. Then, remember the Bell Pottinger political scandal here in 2017.
That should tell you everything. It’s all on Netflix: The Great Hack, Sir Tim Bell, et al.
Sorry Vishen, I had to express my disappointment in how your post was used to compare & how it’s been interpreted.
I still want to do LifeBook with my soul mate if we can somehow get their attention.
Thank you Vishen for highlighting that fear is the big problem. We are all united energy, we are one source. There is no them, there is only us. So what we fear is ‘part of us’. Young children, before the culturescape hits them, only know ‘us’. The way we parent and educate is so important. ❤️
Thank you for the reminder. My heart is still.
Thank you Vishen for FINALLY using your platform to inform folks on what is really happening now– WE need to create Positive community to help each other survive this darkness. Stay Strong and Stay together!
Hello Vishen, thank you very much for this post. It is there for all to see, the injustice against the Palestinian people, the demonization of their tradition and their ways of life, and it is a very important topic in these days. At the same time, there’s a very strong economical disincentive to speak out against the state that is leaning so much of its history and justification on the crimes and treatment of the Jewish people during the third reich and is so comfortably repeating a lot of the actions in similar fashion with the Palestinian people for economical gain and to assert the dominance in the Middle East. Many whi have spoken out against this have faced criticism from media channels and agents acting again in the interest of the Israeli state and powerful associatesd organizations. Thank you very much for choosing truth over short-term economical benefit and exposing this to so many people. The Isreali state is acting in many ways against the basic commandments of the Jewish faith and many of the Jewish people are standing against it in solitarity with Palestine. Thank you for your love, your compassion and speaking your truth.
You are so right, but fear which is given by these tyrants makes people think they are right.
It is hard to reason against them but we all have to try our very best by living example.
Anne was very right to believe most people are good, but don’t become the silent majority.
Keep fighting against all the bullies in the world
Kitty , Netherlands