Is it right to censor so many things?

The other day I had a sort of revelation... I found out that the Diary of Anne Frank was censored. Apparently it was censored in multiple ways. Or perhaps more accurately, censored to a degree by her father, then likely by the publisher, then a bit by various people that are far too puritan for the good of society. Supposedly the majority of the censoring had to do with sexuality and other such things a young girl might discover about herself.

See...humans are not these pure angelic creatures that we like to pretend they are...possibly ever. When kids are young, they make some horribly disgusting jokes to one another, that they either came up with themselves, or heard from someone else. I'm actually kinda thankful that I can't remember the horrible jokes I've heard over my lifetime, including as a child. Some of those things, perhaps you should avoid spreading...and other things...you need to fucking grow up, because children should learn about their bodies.

Of course, her father...it's understandable that he would not want to publish some of those things that his daughter wrote...but the reason that he felt that way about many things that are just normal is because of this uncomfortable shame that we have towards our own sexuality that is just made worse by the censorship that is on all sorts of things. Guess that's kinda over with, with the internet. Though I'm sure they're gonna try to put everything back in Pandora's box, only actually committing worse sins while doing so.

Otto Frank was the only surviving member of the family after they were tragically sold out by a neighbor and sent to concentration camps. Anne Frank herself tragically died a little over a week. I believe, before her camp was liberated.

A father being the one to publish the diary of his dead daughter...I'm sure it was tough for him to let certain things be published from her diary...but I still think perhaps certain things should have still been told. Young people go through these things and hear many things...and there are actually a lot of better ways to learn about things...and perhaps the diary of a holocaust victim might be one of them.

Of course...some things perhaps weren't necessarily that great...but I think I can forgive Anne for making derogatory remarks against German armed forces girls stationed in the Netherlands.

"Do you know why the German Wehrmacht girls are in the Netherlands? As mattresses for the soldiers."
_{- Anne Frank, original source unknown
via sciencealert's article, Anne Frank's Censored Diary Pages Have Been Revealed, And They're Not What We Expected by MIKE MCRAE 18 MAY 201}

Otto Frank's actions may have perhaps gone against Anne's own wishes...or perhaps not...but Anne did vow to keep the diary from her family, saying it was "none of their business" and even said ''I shall also take care that nobody can lay hands on it.'' (via Five Precious Pages Renew Wrangling Over Anne Frank by RALPH BLUMENTHAL SEPT. 10, 1998 NY Times) I suppose Otto Frank considered the difficulties of his marriage as none of the world's business.

I can only feel disgusted by people trying to censor a girl after she has died...and fighting over the copyrights to her works...which should really belong to the world. I'm not sure if anyone should be allowed to profit from it...but it can be used for much good...but even in charity, many profit from their supposed charity...they just get to feel a bit better often than people at a normal job...at the same time as it supporting them. Not like it's the only questionable way to make a buck though.

In the end, what got Otto to finally release the last pages was an investigation as to the Diary's legitimacy apparently started due to Neo-Nazis. (again via the NY Times article) The fucking world we live in...

Who knows what Anne would have wanted the profits from her book going towards though. Maybe she would have wanted her family to be enriched by it. Maybe she would have wanted to help the unfortunate. Maybe she would want to help people of all races suffering from persecution...

Buddy Elias, Anne Frank's cousin, said of the 30 percent longer version released in the 90's, "It's really her. It shows her in a truer light, not as a saint, but as a girl like every other girl. She was nothing, actually; people try to make a saint out of her and glorify her. That she was not. She was an ordinary, normal girl with a talent for writing." (via The things that Anne was really frank about by Marianne Macdonald Media Correspondent, Tuesday 22 October 1996, Independent.co.uk)

Doesn't the world deserve that? Doesn't the world deserve the truth? Instead of rewriting life and history, shouldn't we see the truth and come to terms with reality? Anne Frank was just a girl...trapped in an attic...during one of the most painful and tragic times in the world's history...during a genocide of the Jewish people...

Instead the world thinks that one's period needs to come as a shock to young women...or fully the responsibility of one's mother. People aren't really the best carriers of information all the time. Some information, yes, is well given by another...but should we really be leaving human biology and sexuality up to a game of telephone?

Everyone's seen the discomfort in parents portrayed in media telling their kids about the realities of life and sex...wouldn't it be a lot easier if they had already had the ice broken by many different picks of literary talent...and maybe even the words of another young woman going through exactly what they are going through...

She even seemed to have some wisdom for her age...being more open to sexuality, and saying "It's not wrong for a man to bring a little experience to marriage. After all, it has nothing to do with the marriage itself, does it?" (again via the Independent article)

"Until I was 11 or 12, I didn't realise there was a second set of labia on the inside [of the vagina], though you couldn't see them. What's even funnier is that I thought urine came out of the clitoris. I asked Mother one time what that little bump was, and she said she didn't know. She can really play dumb when she wants to!" (again via the Independent article)

Disgustingly enough, I've actually heard that same mistake from grown women... I can't see such a passage as in any way of a bad exposure for children to human anatomy. HUMANS HAVE SEXUAL ORGANS! Fucking deal with it! It's how we reproduce. I'm surprised we haven't died off with how ashamed people are of their own sexuality and how much we want to censor it all.

Of course, despite my shock at the censorship of The Diary of Anne Frank...this type of regular censorship affects FAR more than just a young dead girl's diary...it's just disgusting that they would silence the words of a girl that died at the hands of the Nazis...who herself apparently felt far more open about her sexuality than her parents did.

It's sick and sad and I just want the whole world to grow up...even as I myself suffer from so many of the problems of the world today...because I too am a product of it...

Nazi book burning in Berlin, May 1933
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1253020