Inspiration to LIVE YOUR(TM) MAGIC!
75 Inspiring Biographies
LARRY ANDERSON
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Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 LIAP Media Corp.
Live Your MAGIC!(TM) trade mark pending
All rights reserved. Except for short excerpts by a reviewer, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Publisher, LIAP Media Corp.
1112-95 Street S.W. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6X 0A7
Visit our website at http://www.LiveYourMagic.com
Book Cover Design: Allen Mohr
Portrait Illustrations: Sayan Chakraborty
Book Page Layout Design: Jana Rade
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This book is dedicated to my daughter Jennifer, my son Stephen, and the youth of the world. Live your MAGIC!
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Larry Anderson’s own story is compelling and inspiring enough, never mind the stories contained in Inspiration to Live Your MAGIC!(TM).
From young people with a belief that child labour is wrong, to world class philosophers, Larry Anderson captures the spirit and essence of inspiration. In this volume you will find stories of children, women and men who followed their dreams. These inspired individuals changed their communities, their nation and the world. From politics, diplomacy, entertainment, the arts and science, their stories demonstrate the triumph of the human spirit.
From the slums of Calcutta, to the halls of Government, the Courts and the glitz of Las Vegas, these individual stories are victories of faith over fear.
A must read for all, this book is truly inspiring.
- Robert Philp , Provincial Court Judge , Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
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This book is filled with real life stories of courage, leadership, wisdom and love. A must read for all young people. Our world is a better place because of the choices each of these people made in their life journey.
- Jay Ball, President & CEO, Junior Achievement of Northern Alberta
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I love the way “Inspiration to Live Your MAGIC!(TM) is written. It captures your attention and is easy to read and understand. I not only learned but it evoked a yearning inside me to live my own magic. Thank you.
- Jeannie Lungard, Teacher, Psychologist
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These seventy-five biographies showcase people from all age groups, backgrounds and cultures. What they share is a passion and commitment to make their dreams come true and to make a difference for others in the process. Read Inspiration to Live Your MAGIC!(TM), you will be inspired.
- Bill Trainor, Retired Teacher
Acknowledgements
First, I acknowledge the support of my wife Janet, who encouraged me to write a book, and accommodated and protected my need for solitude to read, think, and write. She also acted as a sounding board for all of my ideas, giving her honest opinion. I am grateful.
Next, I thank my business partners, especially Lewis Nakatsui and Mike Gendron, and my staff, especially Percy Pouliot, Ray Mitchell, Wesley Gunderson, and Stephen Anderson, who allowed, supported, and encouraged me to set aside Wednesdays, beginning in January 2000, to explore my passion for writing.
For this book, Inspiration to Live Your MAGIC!, I thank Glen Stone for his research into each inspiring life I selected, finding details that would convey the essence of each journey in 400 words. I also thank Cathy Reed and Mary W. Walters for editing and assistance in organizing the biographies. You have significantly improved this book.
Finally, I want to thank three people who believed in and encouraged me as a writer. I met Dave Kirk at five years of age at Daily Vacation Bible Camp in the summer of 1953, and he ended up in my grade one class that fall and in every class until grade nine, when I went to a different school. We were both outsiders and became the closest of friends, and remained so until his premature death in 2005 from cancer. He was the one person I shared my journals with throughout my journey, and he repeatedly told me I needed to write a book.
Two other friends, Gerry Riskin and Mary W. Walters, both published authors and friends from university in the 1970s, have consistently encouraged me to write a book. They provided the confidence when mine waned.
Thank you all.
Table of Contents
The Journey to Live Your Magic
Introduction
The most powerful story we tell is the story we tell to ourselves about our self.
In my youth, my story was based on my experience. In gym class, I was always the last one picked for teams. “Who will take Larry?” the gym teacher would ask. Girls told me, “I just want to be friends,” but I wanted to be more than friends. My marks in school were not impressive. I passed, but that was about it.
After I dropped out of school at sixteen, I left home and got a job. Things seemed better at first. My jobs would seem interesting and fun at the beginning, but they soon became drudgery. And the pay didn’t support much of a lifestyle. I might have accepted that if I could have seen a future, but I couldn’t.
The problem was: I was an expert on who I was not, but I didn’t have a clue who I was. My story about me was about who I wasn’t and what I couldn’t do. The truth was that I felt sorry for myself.
Clearly, the story I was telling myself about me was holding me back. What I needed was some perspective, and I got that perspective from reading the biographies of Anne Frank, Thomas Edison, and Benjamin Franklin.
My troubles were tiny compared to those of thirteen-year-old Anne Frank hiding in an attic from the Nazis. Yet her response was, “I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that remains,” and, “Where there’s hope, there’s life.”
I began to have hope, too.
Some people said that Thomas Edison had failed more than any man who had ever lived. Yet that wasn’t how he saw it. He said, “I haven’t failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is to try just one more time.”
I began to see my mistakes and “failures” as learning experiences.
What amazed me about Benjamin Franklin was that he admitted his faults and then shared his plan for self-improvement. He detailed how he’d use a journal to monitor his progress and keep himself on track.
I began to keep a journal and to think about how I could improve myself. The story I was telling myself about myself started to improve. I decided to complete my high school education.
Every person in this collection inspires, by their response to challenges (and some of them face incredible challenges), by their commitment to serving humanity, and by staying committed to their values.
I believe every person who reads these stories will be inspired.
Foreword
In my work as a teacher of students with learning challenges, I have myself learned much from my charges. For example, I learned that many such students remain trusting and maintain the courage to keep on trying, receptive to a teacher’s efforts to help them meet their challenges. Other students, however, become discouraged and lose their trust in both their own competence and that of anyone else to assist them. I realized that if educators did not do something to rebuild students’ confidence and give them the means to overcome their difficulties, it mattered little if they learned literacy and numeracy skills while nevertheless remaining disempowered persons adrift without hope.
Larry Anderson went through different kinds of challenges in his early life, and was close to losing hope in himself and in his dreams. But he found the means to become empowered, through reading, through dreaming, through the self-reflection writing journals required. Thus, coming to understand the power of hope and belief in one’s ability to take charge of one’s life, Larry has committed himself to communicating this message.
Life is and always will be full of challenges, but the belief that they can be overcome with persistence, determination, and courage is essential to one’s wellbeing. Each person does have a contribution to make, and one’s mindset determines whether that contribution is positive and effective or negligible and wasted. By reading stories such as those in Inspiration to Live Your MAGIC!(TM), and recognizing the long and arduous journeys that often must be taken to pursue one’s dream, personal reflection can inspire one to strive to reach their potential and live the best life possible.
Judy Craig, Retired Teacher, Principal and Administrator
Preface
I wrote this book to keep a promise I made to a twelve-year-old boy in 1959.
The young boy had only two memories of his biological father. He remembered being beaten with a belt at six years of age because he wouldn’t drink his milk. And he remembered his mother sobbing because of the abuse.
One day, when he was seven, his biological father was gone. There was no explanation. The boy didn’t care.
A few years later, his mother married another man, who became his stepfather and who later adopted the boy. This man was kind and supportive, but he was an alcoholic. Many nights, their tiny home was filled with screaming and arguing, usually about money and alcohol, which grew louder as the drinking continued.
One such night in the middle of winter, the boy lay trembling in his bed in the open basement. There were no curtains on the small windows and all around him the laundry was hanging on lines to dry. A car passed by and the headlights shone through the windows, creating shadow monsters of the laundry. The boy pulled the blankets over his head and retreated into his dreams. That night, he made a promise to himself: if he ever figured out how to make his dreams come true, he would share what he had learned with others.
That young boy was me. I had three dreams: to find a girlfriend and have a loving family; to start my own business and make money; and to travel the world.
At sixteen, I dropped out of school and left home, to escape the chaos and pursue my dreams.
At nineteen, I was a lonely, penniless, unemployed high school dropout, living in a basement room and clinging to the hope that my dreams could still come true.
In my early twenties, one profound insight changed the course of my life in an instant. I realized my past did not have to define my future. I began the journey to live my MAGIC!
At sixty-three, I’m living my dreams. My wife Janet and I have been married for thirty-five years. We have two wonderful adult children, Jennifer and Stephen. I started my first business in 1974, which became part of a business group in 1978 of which I’m president and CEO.
Janet and I are financially independent, and we travel six months a year. We have visited every continent except Antarctica (the Antarctic seas are too rough for Janet, but we waved to Antarctica from the Strait of Magellan as we passed the southern tip of South America). This book is part of keeping the promise I made to the twelve-year-old me.
For over forty years, since I was nineteen, I have kept a journal. These journals were sometimes ten-cent coil notebooks, sometimes leather hardcover volumes, but more typically were small, hardcover notebooks I would carry in my pocket.
In order to answer the question, “How did I make my dreams come true?” I have reviewed my journals five times, and the process of distilling the answer has taken ten years.
In the end, the answer has three parts: inspiration, wisdom, and the journey. Together, these three parts show you how to live your MAGIC!
I have written three books that together provide the answer:
- Inspiration to Live Your MAGIC! 75 Inspiring Biographies (which is this book)
- Wisdom to Live Your MAGIC! Life Lessons from 50 Amazing Teachers
- The Journey to Live Your MAGIC! Five Gifts, Five Choices, Six Tools
To publish these books and other media resources, I established a publishing company called LIAP Media Corp. LIAP Media Corp. is a social enterprise. I receive no compensation, and one hundred percent of all royalties and profits will be donated to charity.
It is my new dream that these three books and other media resources will help you and others to live your dreams, through embarking on The Journey to Live Your MAGIC!
Larry Anderson, April 2011
A. Y. Jackson
Once ridiculed by critics, Canadian painter A.Y. Jackson is now considered the pioneer of modern landscape art. He is also the founder of the famous Canadian Group of Seven.
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The first time A.Y. Jackson and his artist friends had a show of their paintings, critics called them “the product of a deranged mind.” It’s a good thing that Jackson believed in himself and his abilities; otherwise, he might not have gone on to be one of the most successful and respected artists in Canadian history.
Alexander Young Jackson (everyone called him A. Y.) was born to a poor family in Montreal in 1882. His father abandoned them when he was young, and A.Y. had to go to work at age twelve to help support his brothers and sisters.
Working in a print shop, he became interested in art, and eventually he saved up enough money to travel and study in Europe.
After returning to Canada, he began to paint landscapes in a fresh new style. Other young artists took notice, and A.Y. Jackson soon had a group of friends who not only loved to paint, but also aspired to change the traditional way in which landscapes were painted.
Jackson had faith in himself and his fellow artists; he felt they could turn the art world on its head. He and several other artists decided to try an unusual experiment. Traveling by train, and living together in a boxcar as it rolled across northern Ontario, they painted everything they saw.
The “Group of Seven,” as they called themselves, put the results of the tour together to create an art show in Toronto in 1920. That was the show where the critics called the paintings “art gone mad.”
But this did not deter A. Y.; he was convinced that the Group of Seven was on to something great. He kept painting, traveling, and exhibiting, and although it took many years, his modern style started to catch on and his work became increasingly popular.
By the time he died in 1974 at the age of eighty-two, A.Y. Jackson was acknowledged as a painting genius and a pioneer of modern landscape art. He and the other painters of the Group of Seven are among the most famous artists in Canadian history, with an entire museum and art gallery dedicated to their work.
Jackson could have chosen to listen to the critics and given up his bold new ideas, but he remained confident and followed his dream.
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Aaron Moser
After a serious accident not only ended Aaron Moser’s junior hockey career but made him a quadriplegic, he created a research foundation dedicated to finding a cure for spinal cord injuries.
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Some Canadian patriots get themselves a maple leaf tattoo. Aaron Moser got two maple leafs built into his custom-made wheelchair - the one he used to help carry the Olympic torch.
It was an incredibly proud moment when Moser, who calls himself a “super patriot,” helped carry the torch around the arena at the opening of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. It was also a tribute to him and his courage.
Aaron was only seventeen years old when tragedy struck during a 1998 local junior league hockey game in British Columbia. He was checked into the boards, hit head first, and broke his neck. Aaron’s spinal cord was cut, leaving him a quadriplegic; he has no feeling or movement below his chest.
For Aaron, who was such an athletic and active guy, it was a brutal blow. For his family, it meant adapting their lives and their home to support him, and help him adjust to his new life. It also meant extra expenses.
Aaron Moser’s family, friends, and the entire community pulled together. They set up a trust fund to cover the renovations, equipment, supplies, and other expenses. Soon, the trust fund was swamped with donations - not just from people in the area who knew Aaron, but also from people throughout the world of hockey.
They weren’t just motivated by the tragedy; they were inspired by the way the teenager handled the shocking change to his life. Aaron refused to complain about his fate or to give up hope. He kept insisting that he would work hard enough and long enough to walk again.
The trust fund and Moser’s courage kept attracting donations. After a while, there was enough money not only to help Aaron Moser, but also to set up a foundation in his name - a non-profit group dedicated to helping find a cure for him and others with spinal cord injuries.
Every year, Moser and dedicated volunteers run a golf tournament and other activities to raise money for spinal cord injury research. As of this writing, they have brought in more than $400,000. And every year, they help researchers get a little closer to a cure.
As Moser always says, “I have no doubt that one day I will walk again!”
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Abraham Lincoln
A lawyer and an advocate for making slavery illegal, Abraham Lincoln was president of the U.S. during the American Civil War that ended with the abolishment of slavery.
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It’s not always easy to do the right thing, especially when some people are threatening to kill you if you don’t back down!
But Abraham Lincoln was the kind of person who stuck to his principles, no matter what.
Abe Lincoln was always known for “doing the right thing.” His small store in Kentucky became the most popular in town because people knew they could trust him. That’s how he earned his nickname - “Honest Abe.”
All through his life, Lincoln valued integrity more than anything else. He insisted that people who worked for him must be honest and fair.
Although he was born in poverty, Lincoln pulled himself up through life. He studied at night to become a lawyer. He was popular and well-liked enough to get into politics, and that’s where Abe Lincoln’s sense of what was right and wrong rose to the top.
Slavery was still legal in the United States, and Lincoln was one of many people who believed it was simply wrong. He gave powerful speeches calling for an end to slavery.
The issue was threatening to tear the country apart by the time Lincoln was elected president. The southern and northern states had opposing views on the subject and the U.S. Civil War began.
It was a long war with many casualties. Soon, Lincoln was unpopular in many parts of the north; in the south, he was simply hated.
Even after the northern forces won the war and Lincoln was president of the whole country again, many people in the south wished him dead. That hatred only got worse when Lincoln kept his word and freed the slaves. But even though he was getting death threats, Honest Abe stuck to his principles.
One night Lincoln went with his wife to watch a play. At the theater, an actor who didn’t like Lincoln’s politics shot and killed him. It was a great shock to the nation. The country had lost its strong but gentle leader.
That was more than 140 years ago, but Abraham Lincoln is still remembered as one of the greatest leaders in American history - the man who ended slavery in the United States by doing the right thing, no matter what the cost.
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Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer became a doctor so he could devote the rest of his life to helping people who most needed help. He also traveled the world, advocating for peace and “reverence for life,” and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work.
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“Do something wonderful with your life,” said Albert Schweitzer. “People may imitate you!”
Dr. Schweitzer lived out those words, using his life to help untold thousands of people and to set an example that still inspires the world today.
As a child in the late 1800s, Albert Schweitzer showed an incredible talent for music. By the time he was a young man, he was not only giving popular concerts on the pipe organ, he had become an acknowledged world expert on building organs, interpreting classical music, and making musical recordings.
He made a very good living with his music, but Schweitzer was also a deep thinker when it came to religion and living a good, worthwhile life. He wrote influential books about Jesus Christ and Christian philosophy, and he decided that when he turned thirty years old, he would give up his career and devote the rest of his life to helping other people.
As planned, he quit working at age thirty and went back to school. His family and friends thought he was crazy, but Schweitzer had decided to become a doctor. He figured that was the best route to being able to help others in need.
After getting his medical degree, Dr. Schweitzer raised enough money by playing more concerts to set off for the poor African country of Gabon, where there was a critical shortage of medical care. He and his wife traveled more than 300 kilometers up the Ogooué River and set up a makeshift hospital.
People came from hundreds of kilometers around to Dr. Schweitzer’s little one-room medical miracle - the only hospital and doctor that most of them had ever seen. He and his wife, Helene, worked themselves to exhaustion. They were forced to stop when World War I broke out when, as Germans working in French territory, they were taken prisoner.
After the war, Dr. Schweitzer went back to Gabon, re-built the abandoned hospital, and resumed his free medical care for anyone who needed it. For another forty years, until his death in 1963, he spent most of his time in Gabon. He spent the rest of his time traveling the world, raising money and encouraging other people to follow his example.
Albert Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952 - not just for his hospital work, but also for his personal philosophy - “Reverence for Life” - that encouraged everyone to respect others and recognize their right to life.
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Alfred Nobel
Can you imagine reading your own obituary in the newspaper? What would people say about you? Alfred Nobel got the chance to read his own death notice, and he didn’t like what he saw.
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Alfred Nobel was a very wealthy and successful man. He had become an expert in chemistry and invented three of the most commonly used explosives in the world - dynamite, gelignite (used in mining) and ballistite, which is still used as a rocket propellant today.
With the huge fortune he made from these inventions, Nobel bought an engineering company called Bofors and turned it into an arms manufacturer. He made another enormous fortune designing cannons and guns and selling them around the world.
Then, in 1888, Alfred’s brother died while visiting France. A French newspaper thought it was Alfred who had died and they published an obituary that began like this:
THE MERCHANT OF DEATH IS DEAD
Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday….
Alfred Nobel was shocked. Was this what people thought of him? Was this the legacy he would leave to the world? That’s when he decided to use his vast wealth to make a positive difference.
Nobel set up a foundation with $250 million dollars in funding. Every year the foundation would consult the leading experts in the world and hand out prizes to people who had made great contributions to humanity. There would be prizes for sciences, for literature, and for promoting peace.
Today the Nobel Prizes are probably the bestknown and most prestigious awards in the world. They have been awarded to great scientists, authors and activists and helped draw attention to many outstanding works and worthy causes.
Nobel set up his foundation in 1895: just in time to influence his own obituary. He died only a year later.
The Nobel Prizes accomplished his wish; they created a very different legacy for him than a reputation as “The Merchant of Death.” He is not remembered as an explosives inventor or arms dealer, but as one of the greatest philanthropists of all time.
He is also a great example of how it is never too late to change your life and help make the world a better place.
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Alice Waters
Besides being a world-renowned chef and creator of the famous California restaurant Chez Panisse, Alice Waters runs a national campaign promoting organic food and healthy eating for children.
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When famous people from Hollywood travel through Berkeley, California, there is only one place to eat: Chez Panisse. It’s been named the best restaurant in the United States, and one of the best in the entire world.
The creator of this remarkable eating-place is Alice Waters, who has been voted one of the top chefs on the planet, and is given credit for popularizing organic food in North America.
Waters actually set out to be a teacher, and was studying education in France when she discovered fine food and the fact that organic food, locally grown without chemicals, makes a huge difference in cooking.
Back home, while working as a teacher, she continued studying, cooking, and making delicious meals for friends . . . and their friends . . . and their friends’ friends. It wasn’t long before she thought of opening a restaurant to serve her organic food to everyone.
Within a few years, Chez Panisse was a sensation, and Waters’ ideas for fresh, healthy food spread to other restaurants, and then to supermarkets and kitchens across North America. She changed the way that many people think about and prepare their food.
Some people might be satisfied with having legions of happy clients, a worldwide reputation, and a series of bestselling books. Other people might have expanded into more restaurants, TV shows, and other ways of building on their wealth and fame - but not Alice Waters. For her, the money and recognition are only tools; it’s how you use them that counts.
So, now that she has played a big role in making organic food popular and available, Waters has decided to make another difference in the world. She is using her fame, experience, and knowledge for something else she strongly believes in - helping children.
That’s why you’ll see one of the world’s best chefs going into schools to teach kids (and their parents) about healthy eating and organic food. It’s part of her national campaign to fight obesity and other health problems caused by bad eating habits that people develop when they are young. Her dream is to help everyone enjoy a better quality of life through better eating.
So, in the end, Alice Waters is still following her dream of teaching and helping young people.
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Amelia Earhart
A record-setting aviation pioneer and adventurer, Amelia Earhart was a celebrity and advocate for women’s equality in the early 1900s.
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Millie and Pidge were two unusual little girls. Growing up in the 1860s in Kansas, their mother let them run wild like the neighborhood boys - something that just wasn’t done in those days. Millie and her sister became fearless tomboys: climbing trees, collecting bugs, and helping their uncle build a home-made (and very dangerous!) wooden roller coaster.
Full of self-confidence, Amelia (Millie’s real name) grew up determined to do something great with her life. She just didn’t know what it was going to be.
One answer seemed to come during World War I, when Earhart visited her sister in Toronto and ended up volunteering as a nurse at a military hospital. Right after the war, a worldwide flu pandemic killed millions of people in 1918. Earhart kept nursing but got sick herself, and spent nearly a year recovering in the hospital.
Then, something else happened in Toronto that changed Amelia Earhart’s life. She watched one of the first annual air shows at the famous Canadian National Exhibition. The pilot of a biplane swooped down low and flew right over her head. From that moment, she was hooked on airplanes.
Back home in Kansas, Earhart took her first airplane ride and announced that she was going to learn to fly. Working every job she could get, Amelia saved up the money for lessons and became only the sixteenth woman in the world to get her international flying license.
Amelia Earhart became somewhat of a celebrity and set out to promote flying, especially for women. Her fame skyrocketed after she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, even though she was little more than a passenger.
After that, Earhart started setting her own records. She became the first woman to fly across North America and back, set a new world altitude record, and became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.
By this time, she was a major star - writing books, making celebrity appearances, and designing her own line of clothes. She used her fame to promote flying as a form of transportation, and constantly worked for equality for women, not just in the air, but in all aspects of life.
Amelia Earhart was one of the most famous people in the world when she disappeared during her greatest adventure - flying around the world. Her fate is still a mystery.
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Andrew Lloyd Webber
Composer, writer, and producer of the most popular musicals of all time, Andrew Lloyd Webber is an Oscar, Grammy, and Tony Award winner, and a huge contributor to the arts in Britain.
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Music was in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s genes. His father was a classical composer, and his mother played both the violin and piano; Webber’s younger brother grew up to be a world-renowned solo cello player.
So it’s not surprising that Andrew loved music as a child, and showed a remarkable natural talent. By age nine, he was composing suites of classical music.
Among Andrew’s talented family members was his Aunt Viola, an actress who introduced him to the world of theater and took him to see many plays and musical shows. The bright little boy fell in love with the stage and dreamed of being involved in show business.
Andrew was a top student in school and went off to the famed Oxford University to study history. But his love of music and the theater was so strong that he realized he would never be happy unless he followed his passion. He switched to the Royal College of Music, determined to pursue his dream.
There are always many bright young musicians trying to make a living composing music, but Andrew Lloyd Webber stood out from the crowd by using two important aspects of his artistic background - the discipline and power of classical music, and the fun and appeal of the popular theater.
The musicals he created from that artistic fusion include the most popular of all time. His shows, including Cats, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Evita, The Phantom of the Opera, and Jesus Christ, Superstar, have set box-office records, become popular films, and generated such hit songs as “Memory,” “The Music of the Night,” and “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.”
With one smash hit after another, Webber was instrumental in bringing musicals back into popularity. He has won a long list of awards, including an Oscar, four Grammies, and seven Tony Awards.
Webber has invested some of the hundreds of millions of dollars he has made (he’s among the richest people in Britain) into buying theaters, supporting upcoming playwrights and composers, and creating a charitable foundation.
He has contributed so much to the arts in Britain that the Queen knighted him, and later made him a baron. Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber is still following his passion for musical theater, creating new shows that tour the world and bring his unique brand of music to new generations of fans.
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Anne Frank
Author of a diary that chronicled the fate of a Jewish family in Nazi Germany, teenager Anne Frank died in a concentration camp; but, decades later, her diary was published in more than sixty languages.
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Being a Jew in Nazi Germany was a horrific fate. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis took away the Jews’ jobs, property, and rights, then began sending them to concentration camps where they worked under horrible conditions and were beaten, starved, and often killed en masse in gas ovens.
Anne Frank was just four years old when the Nazis came to power, and her family wisely fled from Germany to Holland. But the Germans soon invaded Holland and began rounding up all Jews to be sent to the death camps.
Her father took thirteen-year-old Anne and her mother and sister into hiding. He had a secret apartment built in his office building, and some of his employees bravely brought them food and supplies. Anne and her family hid in the cramped quarters for two years, living in constant fear of being discovered.
Anne, who had been a very good student, began to keep a journal to help pass the long days. She wrote about her family members’ daily lives, about the terrible fate of their friends and others at the hands of the Nazis, and about her dreams of freedom. She still had the courage to hope.
Their secret hiding place was so well constructed that they might have stayed hidden for the entire war, but someone betrayed them and told the Nazis.
Anne’s father was sent to one death camp; the two girls and their mother were sent to another. Anne’s mother gave all her food to her two daughters to help keep them alive. , and starved to death; the two girls, working like slaves, sick, and existing on tiny amounts of rotten food, also died a few months later.
The only survivor was Anne’s father. After the war, he went back to Holland and found the loyal workers who had hidden his family. They had saved Anne’s diary, hoping to return it to her.
When Anne’s father saw how well written his daughter’s journal was, and the powerful tale it told of suffering under the Nazis, he determined to have it published. The Diary of Anne Frank is considered one of the most important books of the twentieth century.
Today, Anne’s diary is often studied in schools to demonstrate the terrible human cost of bigotry and hatred - as well as the power of hope.
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Beatrice Biira
After her family was rescued from desperate poverty by being given a goat, young Beatrice Biira was able to get an education, and she became an international advocate and speaker in support of education and against poverty.