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
Agree so much with your words! The world seems to be once again upside down… How can we not learn from the past? why do we still commit the same atrocious mistakes as we did as a humanity in the past.
Why do we keep choosing cruel, selfish, ambitious leaders. Politics and power only corrupt people more…
Thank you for expressing your thoughts and stand up for so many!
Loads of admiration towards you!
Andrea
Thank you, Vishen.
This is a lovely article. It should wake up anyone who’s still a mere onlooker to all that’s going on. We’re one humanity. Cruelty to one is cruelty to the other. Our hands may seem tied (‘they’ have the financial and political power), but our loving, prayerful thoughts and the little acts of kindness we can do are not.
Individually, we must send healing thoughts to both the oppressors and the oppressed. More for the oppressor, in my opinion, for them to heal and know the truth of who they are, humans who are created to love other humans, irrespective of the amount of melanin in the skin of the oppressed or their country of origin.
The contrasts we’re experiencing, which have intensified over the past few years, are calling each of us to become vigilant about our contributions to the world’s low spiritual energy level by our words, thoughts, and actions. We must all raise our consciousness to love. Love is what will heal the world. Let’s love each other more, let’s forgive more. Let’s fear the oppressors less, to reduce their power.
I invoke God, Allah, Source, and The Universe to help everyone who reads this article align with love. And so it is. ASE
Thank you, Vishen.
Yes, good to see a successful leading entrepreneur, businessman, and educator unafraid to speak the uncomfortable truth with humanity and clarity and power.
Bravo!!
Please stop the USA political commentary.
What would it look like to reframe these as primarily humanitarian issues, as opposed to political? Humans and our collective actions are more important than any political party. If you agree with basic Republican ideology, cool.. but there is no need for any political party to promote anti-humanism and mass cruelty, ever. If you are primarily conservative and want your party to maintain integrity and legitimacy, fight against the fascist policies it is adopting. Fight for it to do better.
This is beautifully written Vishen, Thank you. The symmetry of nazi Germany and the US and isreal, scares the absolute hell out of me and breaks my heart. Why do we allow those that aren’t “really good at heart” to take power? Surely theres more of us that are, why are we constantly not represented?
SO WELL SAID VISHEN, My father serving in the Canadian army as a peacekeeper, was posted with his family to Germany. We were there for a few years in the mid 50’s, not too long after the second world war. The concentration camp near where we lived gave tours to remind people of the atrocities that happened there, and to hopefully stop people from ever doing that to another human being again. Yet, here we are, doing the same thing to our fellow human. I think about the phrase from the Spanish philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. And in America today and also other places around the world I see so many similarities to that quote… repeating the same things… only this time the weapons are more powerful and destroy further and faster. I believe if each one of us did something positive however small, perhaps enough of us would make a difference.
I agree on many points in the email. A couple things stood out to me that I would like to point out. Anne franks Diary includes aspects of her exploring her sexuality and her budding relationship. That is the aspect that has caused the book to be under review. It was missleading how it reads as though it was being sensored for other reasons. On a different note, if you were in charge, how would you handle illegal immegrants? pardon them? have an open boarder? Im genuenly curious about what changes you would make (without ignoring the problems) and the solutions you have. Thanks.
Vishen, your story hits hard—especially now that so many feel unsafe to simply be themselves.
Growing up, I met a Holocaust survivor and read Anne Frank’s powerful words. In my seventh-grade history class, I remember the phrase “Never again” being said over and over. I believed it. Because how could humanity, after seeing such cruelty, ever allow it to happen again? How could entire groups of humans be divided, persecuted, stripped of dignity, left to waste away, humiliated, while others were “evacuated”?
In the summer of 2016, I visited a former concentration camp in Germany. The land around it was breathtaking, but stepping inside the cold, heavy metal doors was like walking into another world. The chill wasn’t from the air—it was from the memory of what had been done there. When I stepped into the “shower” room, I felt sick to my stomach. This was where extermination happened.
That was only a few generations ago.
I am American—with Hawaiian and European lineage. As a native Hawaiian, I carry a different memory of loss. The sovereign nation of Hawaiʻi once welcomed visitors with open arms. The ones who took part in overthrowing our Queen Liliʻuokalani, forbidding the Hawaiian language to be spoken in schools or in public. A culture silenced. A connection to the land and people nearly severed.
History matters. Not to be weaponized, but to be learned from. It teaches us where fear, greed, and division can lead.
The point isn’t to fear one another—it’s to connect. To come together for humanity. For healing. For the betterment of the world.
But too many leaders today profit from division. They tear down families and build wealth, when what we need are leaders who build common unity in our communities. Leaders who work to defeat cruelty, disease, poverty—not each other.
For a long time, I’ve been at a loss for words. I felt isolated, unsure if my voice mattered. But now, silence feels more dangerous than speaking. Thank you, Vishen, for daring to share your sentiment—because it is time. Time to rise together for all of humanity.
I never imagined I would see this kind of division inside the “United” States- the country built on freedom and hope. And yet here we are, with rights shrinking if you are a different ethnicity, gender, or orientation—based on the narrow lens of men who wrote the Constitution hundreds of years ago.
We should be evolving, not sliding back two hundred years. Meanwhile, other nations are moving forward—embracing diversity, expanding equality, and blending cultures in ways that strengthen community.
The truth is simple: If you open your heart and mind, you grow. If you cling tightly to the past, you decay.
We cannot ban history or rewrite it. We must face it, learn from it, and grow better. As George Orwell warned:
“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
We know better. Now it’s time to grow better.
And thank you, Vishen, and Mindvalley—for expanding not just the mind, but also the heart.
Sentiment and action together can take us further than fear ever will. Let’s create this community of unity.
– Sara Nakamura
BCTMB, Wellbeing Consultant, Author, Human
Thank you for letting me know I should cancel my subscription with these hostile words. How do you think that pulling the words of literal nazis and comparing them against statements taken out of context with no understanding, but labeling them as jewish is ok?
Perfectly written! Thank you for speaking up!
Thank you VISHEN! Salute to your thoughts and ideology.
I think we must remember this one quote in life towards society, nation & entire humanity-
“What is my duty as a human being,”
Because,
“After all, we are all human being.”
This arrived in my inbox at a time when my heart was sore. So sore, I couldn’t focus on anything else but the pain.
Reminding us of Anne, her resilience and hope in the face of tyranny and hate, came on time.
I, too, do believe there is still good in the world; there is still love and kindness in human hearts. Darkness might obscure it, but it cannot take it away.
What I fear is numbness. We are swamped with bad news, horrible pictures of the ugliness and inhumanity around the world. The heart gets sick for a while, but then it gets numb. Saturated with all this darkness until it feels no more.
We need to keep our hearts alive and feeling to be able to feel love, kindness, and work toward unity and solidarity.
And today, while my heart is sore, I remind myself that this means it is still feeling, still alive.
I wish your heart the same.
I Am from Israel, and I am against our government actions.
BUT it doesn’t mean I agree with your article either.
I don’t remember Anne frank setting out to kill innocent people in their beds on a quite Saturday morning. You did not mention October 7th even once.
She also did not hold them captive for 2 years now, starving them to death as the Palestinians do. I do not think bombing Gazza will set them free, but you cannot ignore Israel right to defend itself.
I am now on my way to a protest to set our survive people in Hamas tunnels free. You did not mention them once.
I am simply disappointed that in the pretense of peace you ignored the complex situation of Israel and the Palestinians. Even those of us that are against the disgusting quotes of our politicians realize it’s not that simple. And both sides are putting the extremists in the front.
This did not start with October 7. It has started with the Nakba in 1948. Gaza has been closed off from the world since 2007. Have you missed that part of the information? Yes, it is terribly cruel what Hamas does, but surely if you compare the numbers, it is nothing. Why do we see faces and names from all the dead and captured israelis, and why are the palestinians just numbers. About 60.000 have been killed since October 7th. Plus all the others before that. Why do we only see them in numbers, not their faces, their stories, their personalities, their dreams and aspirations? Israël is killing not Hamas, but women, children, sick people, doctors and journalists (over 500 since October 7th). And on purpose – they keep bombing hospitals and their so called safe zones. War crime after war crime. This is a true genocide. And nothing in the world can justify this. I am happy to read though, that there are israelies who are critical to their government.
And btw, I do understand it is terribly complex and hope Jews, but also Palestinians find a safe place in the world. I wish you good luck, raise your voice, because the government will be more likely to listen to you than to us.
Exactly!
I am not sure where you got your information from, but It is actually on the summer reading list for grades 6-8
https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/blogs/you-read-that-right.stml
Vishen, I’m very disappointed in your post. You severely twisted historical facts and took issues out of their context. First of all, Jews have never been terrorists who massacred anyone or sparked genocide of their own nation shielded by their own civilians. Talking about ongoing situation in Gaza, it was the terrorist organization officially representing Palestine who massacred Israeli, took hostages, and tortured them, but not vice versa. I’m against conflicts especially when people die on both sides. I don’t justify any acts of violence no matter who commit them. But you must be really careful when making such official statements merely based on emotions and populist trends without deep understanding of the situation especially while making such human-sensitive business like Mindvalley. In this context, all your claims, conclusions, and comparisons between Nazis and Israelis are not only irrelevant but severely undermining trust in you as a coach of mindfulness and global leader.
Exactly
Sorry but this is simply incorrect and misleading
I’ve never read Anne Frank’s Diary but I believe I will now. Such a sad time and the scary part is history can repeat itself if we choose to be silent and do nothing.
Vishen, Thank you for sharing this and with your permission I would like pass it on to others. I am so sad that I couldn’t continue my membership this year. So did enjoy your courses. You do good work. God bless you!!
Dear Vishen, My name is Jonathan Burstein. I am a mindvalley subscriber for years now and multi quest graduate.
I have tremendous respect for you and your mission and have gained immensely from mindvalley. I am not shocked that there are people who subscribe to the views presented in your article, but I am surprised that someone as intelligent as yourself could overlook the gaping difference between the Nazis and the Israelis. I happen to have many political and religious issues with the State of Israel myself and definitely don’t consider myself a supporter of the State of Israel, but simply from a logical perspective, how can you compare an unprovoked, 100% PROPAGANDA DRIVEN Nazi regime of total inhuman documented subhuman UNPROVOKED cruelty, to a RESPONSE of a attacked, mutilated, inhumanely treated nation, fighting for their survival, attempting to eradicate a existential threat who with no regard to their own people have entrenched themselves behind human shields to evoke the emotions of as many people as they can fool. Have you heard the unveiling of facts by Hamas children themselves http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pjOEJumoABg
it’s not a secret that Hamas has used their people as human shields, who’s injustice is that!? Vishen, answer me honestly, if a woman came at you, your family and thousands of your friends with a machine gun and she was totally covered head to toe with live innocent babies so that the only way to disable her from destroying thousands of your people would be by you shooting at her and inevitably killing those babies, you believe you should sooner sit back and have your family and friends wiped out because what right do you have to shoot those babies!? Or has SHE shot them by putting them in the line of self defense fire. How do you compare Israeli response to actual physical attacks and threats, to totally unsubstantiated propaganda, even the Nazi propaganda couldn’t conjure that the Jews were physically aggressive! Because they weren’t and aren’t, and in the 3.5 thousand years of our existence, have never been! Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of history knows the Jews have been a passive peaceful nation abused, usurped, plundered and persecuted savagely throughout history, only because of the guilty conscious the world suffers from our existence. We were given the land of Israel by God thousands of years ago and had it stolen from us by the Babylonians and subsequently by the Romans, The First Temple was destroyed in 586 BCE by the Babylonians, and the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans and we have been wandering ever since, establishing ourselves in a host country getting too wealthy and powerful for many peoples liking, getting killed and plundered or usurped and exiled if we were lucky and moved on to the next place. We’ve been doing this for 2095 years and would have never created a state of Israel had the Nazi genocide not taken place and had the British allowed refugees free passage in to Palestine and had our Arab brethren allowed us to live peacefully with them, we would have continued as we did for the previous 2095 years without a homeland honoring our allegiance with our hosting country until Messiah arrives and establishes ultimate world peace. But a lot of people got fed up with being bullied and subject to the whims of the abusive hosting nations and decided to take matters into their own hands and build a a Jewish run and protected state back in the land that is rightfully theirs. Vishen, we all know that if the Arabs would put down their arms FOREVER, UNQUESTIONABLY, there would not be one shot, not one! by any Jew! but if the Israelis would put down their weapons they will be totally eradicated in minutes, from the Ocean to the Sea!
Vishen, you have a voice to many people, please speak the truth to them, don’t be blinded by hate, it is unbecoming of your stature.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Burstein
Sorry but this is simply incorrect and misleading
Perfectly written. Thank You.
As a child of the 50s in the UK many books were band but even then we were resourceful teenagers and sourced copies which we shared. Thank goodness All literature is still free to read currently within the UK.
We are one species ….Human, …tolerance, understanding, compassion and above all Love makes us Human.
These characteristics must never be forgotten they are woven into our DNA .
Love is all we need.
Thank you Beatles.
What a beautiful and powerful message. Thank you Vishan. Why people behave with such hatred baffles and deeply saddens me. I endeavor to believe, as Anne said, “that people are really good at heart”. It’s hard at times . . .
Thank you for your leadership, Vishen. I appreciate your thoughts on this. I’m also seeing the parallels between current times and leaders to the atrocities that happened in Anne Frank’s time. Thank you for speaking up.