Anne Frank Courage

Courageous and Strong People of the Past Anne Frank once said, “The weak die out and the strong will survive, and will live on forever!” People must be strong and hopeful if they want to persevere through extreme circumstances like a genocide. Anne Frank and Vahan Kenderian were these strong people. Vahan, like Anne Frank, was in his teen years when there was a genocide of his people. All of his family was killed, so his only option was to escape to Constantinople. Vahan Kenderian from Forgotten Fire can be connected to the historical figure Anne Frank because both people share parallels of living during a genocide, and doing everything that is possible to survive. The main character of Forgotten Fire was completely independent and was sadly
Vahan looked back,“We started toward the bank. When my foot touched it, I dropped to my knees and thanked God, then picked up a handful of dirt, of freedom, and rubbed it on my arms and hands. I looked back at the sea, at the blue-green water and the cargo ship that distance had made small. I looked at the horizon beyond the sea, at a world I would never see again” (Bagdasarian 261). Vahan could not believe that he had made it and survived the Armenian genocide. His life was ahead of him now and he could now tell the world what had happened. After two years of hiding from German soldiers, everyone in the annex of Miep Gies was arrested and brought to concentration camps on August 4, 1944. Anne Frank proclaimed, “I don’t want to live in vain like most people. I want to be useful for bringing enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want stay living even after my death!” (Anne Frank). Anne Frank was hopeful until the end. She only wanted everyone to be happy even if she was going to die. Since Vahan was now free, he not only had to tell his story of surviving the Armenian genocide, but it was also his duty to pass on his people through his seed. Vahan recalled, “I knew that there would never again be another Bitlis or Erzurum or Van, that the world I had known would survive in the seed I carried with me, and the memories of that seed would fade as one generation succeeded another one. I knew I was free and that I would never be free” (Bagdasarian 269). Vahan was one of the few surviving Armenians that were living in Turkey during this time, and he was the one that needed to describe everything because he had seen and been through everything that involved the Armenian genocide. Even though Vahan survived and Anne Frank did not, both of their stories are still equally relevant and