After one of the first articles I wrote for this series in the St. Petersburg Times, I received a letter from a reader stating that he did not believe the diary was written by Anne Frank. Denial of the truth of history has repercussions for each of us and our stories. As individuals and as a nation, we must face the rights and wrongs and learn from uncovering the truth of history, however painful. For example, for a long time, history books in the United States denied the degree to which U.S. history included violating the rights and lives of certain groups, such as American Indians and African-Americans. Human rights and dignity can be achieved only if we face the past and resolve to admit responsibility and error.
Remembrance is an important part of history.
Here are two poems. With a mixture of emotions from rage to love, he records his story and that of the Armenian people. In the following poem, he traces his grandmother's terrible ordeal as she was driven from her ancestral home. The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. Dr. Joyce Apsel lectures nationally on Anne Frank, genocide and human rights.