I had Otto Frank (Anne’s Frank’s father) on my mind last night—don’t ask me why. He occurs to me every now and then. When I visited the Anne Frank Museum in the summer of 2010 I left with a new appreciation for Otto. I guess I had just always thought of the story from Anne’s perspective and not her father’s. The poor man lost both his wife and two daughters in the concentration camps, and he had to try and build a life for himself when it was all over.

I went to his Wikipedia page because I was curious as to whether or not he remarried. He did—about eight years after the fact. While searching for this information I came across a short video of Otto. They play the same video at the end of the tour of the Frank Museum. It’s precious. He talks about the experience of reading Anne’s diary. He felt he had a very good relationship with his daughter, but even he was unaware of the deep thoughts she was thinking. He notes that maybe it’s impossible for parents to really know their children: