Anne Frank in the present: texts, spaces, multimedia in the transmission to the new generation

Abstract

This essay originates from the teaching experience in remote mode made in a university course for high school pupils on the (post)memory of the Holocaust (hereafter referred to as Shoah) that was centered on Anne Frank and her diary. In particular, the transmission and remediation of her diary and legacy are investigated in the light of concepts and approaches stemming from the field of Memory Studies. After some introductory remarks, in the second paragraph Anne Frank and her diary are discussed as specimens of what Pierre Nora (1984) has termed as lieux de mémoire. The third paragraph is dedicated to Anne Frank in the postmemory age, adopting the perspective of Marianne Hirsch’s study (2012). The last paragraph deals with the multimedia remediation of the diary and draws some conclusions based on recent scholarship in the field of Digital Memory Studies and on two audio/visual case studies.