Thursday, February 15, 2007

In the non-news

Two news stories about Holocaust today: Belgium collaborated in the Holocaust, and Anne Frank's family tried to fee to the US unsuccessfully.

How, I am all for remembering Holocaust: museums, books, documentaries and suchlike. But how exactly are those two items news? I have been under impression that both were known since 1945. I have seen the responses that Otto Frank received from the US authorities with my own two eyes in the Anne Frank museum in 1994. (I mean, I have seen them in the Anne Frank museum in 1994, not that Otto Frank received them in 1994. Federal government is sometimes slow, but not quite that slow.)

The appearance of these items in the news was triggered by a new report of how exactly Belgium collaborated, and researchers finding Otto Frank's letters to his American friends, but it's still strange that these items are newsworthy, considering that the fact have been already known.

No comments: