Anne Frank’s Inferred Sexuality in Novel Upsets Kin

The family of Anne Frank is accusing a British author for exploiting the famed diarist’s relationship with Peter van Pels for her new novel.

In “Annexed,” Sharon Dogar created a set of diaries from Peter’s perspective detailing his time in the building with the teenage Anne, as well as his subsequent time and death in a concentration camp. Dogar elaborates on the experiences between Peter and Anne in the novel on the basis that she “is in no doubt that they were in love.”

Her portrayal of their encounters spurred Anne’s family and others involved with preserving her name and story to speak out against Dogar.

“Anne was not the child she is in this book,” said Bernhard “Buddy” Elias, Anne’s cousin and head of the memorial foundation Anne Frank-Fonds in Basel, Switzerland. “I also do not think that their terrible destiny should be used to invent some fictitious story.”

The Anne Frank Trust’s co-founder, Gillian Walnes, is among those who criticized Dogar’s decision to write about Anne and Peter, who was three years older than Anne.

“Fictionalization is totally unnecessary, and in fact sensationalist,” she said, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Dogar’s representatives, however, maintain the opposite.

“It is categorically not an attempt to ‘sex up’ her incredibly important story,” a spokesperson for Andersen Press told the Jerusalem Post. “Sharon is very aware of the enduring importance that Anne’s account has for generations both past, present and future.”

Swedish Dockworkers Boycott Israeli Ships

Swedish dockworkers have begun a boycott of Israeli ships.

The boycott, which began at midnight Tuesday night and is scheduled to last for one week, covers all of Sweden’s ports.

The 1,500 members of the Swedish Port Workers voted earlier this month to approve the boycott in protest of Israel’s interception last month of a Gaza-bound flotilla in which nine activists were killed, as well as to protest Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Eleven Swedish citizens were aboard the flotilla.

On the first day of the boycott, dockworkers refused to handle about a dozen cargo containers at a southwestern port.

Israel ships fruit, vegetables, spices and skin care products to Sweden. Swedish-Israeli trade accounts for about 0.2 percent of Sweden’s total imports and exports.

Paris Rally Supports Israel, Shalit

Thousands attended a pro-Israel demonstration in Paris that also called for the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

France’s Jewish umbrella group CRIF, which organized the event, said that Tuesday night’s demonstration attracted a crowd of about 4,000; police put the number at 2,000.

At a square in eastern Paris, the crowd gathered to show support for Israel following intense criticism of the Jewish state for its interception of a flotilla aiming to break Israel’s Gaza blockade on May 31. The rally also called for the release of Shalit, a dual Israeli-French citizen who has been held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas since he was abducted in a cross-border raid four years ago.

Leading French intellectuals spoke at the gathering, including philosopher Alain Finkeilkraut and local celebrity Bernard-Henri Levy, who is known as BHL.

Both condemned what they perceive as disproportionate criticism of Israel for boarding the flotilla and the ensuing clashes that led to the deaths of nine passengers.

Finkeilkraut echoed concerns that Tuesday night’s crowd was limited to mostly Jewish participants.

“We unite for Gilad Shalit when you are Jewish, whereas he is also French,” he said, adding later that “I strongly regret that there’s this separation between Jews and other Frenchmen. The Gaza affair has made things very hard.”

Pro-Palestinian protests following the May raid gathered tens of thousands of demonstrators across the country.

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