L ifestyle /C ulture
‘My Best Friend Anne Frank’ Misses Opportunities
FI L M
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
THOSE ONE DEGREE of
separation from Anne Frank
have made their way into
headlines in recent weeks:
Dutch Jewish notary Arnold
van den Bergh, who allegedly
betrayed the Frank family by
reporting their whereabouts
to Nazis officials, a potential
foe; and Hannah Goslar — a
friend — Holocaust survivor
and schoolmate of Frank’s in
Amsterdam, whose story is most
recently depicted in the film “My
Best Friend Anne Frank,” now
streaming on Netflix.

“My Best Friend Anne
Frank,” directed by ​​
Ben Sombogaart, oscillates between
scenes of Hannah (Josephine
Arendsen) navigating the
beginnings of Nazi rule in
Amsterdam in tandem with
the trials and tribulations of
teen-dom and surviving the
horrors of the Bergen-Belsen
concentration camp in 1945,
where she takes on the role of
parent to younger sister Gabi,
while still a child herself, only
16 years old.

Hannah and Anne (Aiko
Beemsterboer), young teens
more concerned with wooing
blond-haired, blue-eyed
boys than with the ongoing
Second World War, are given
an unwelcome dose of reality
as they are told more and
more often by their parents
to keep a low profile and to
avoid picking up the phone
or leaving the house — lest
someone dangerous spots the
bright yellow cloth stars sewn
onto their cardigans.

Despite both being young
Jewish girls growing up in
the Netherlands, Hannah
and Anne couldn’t be more
different. Hannah is shy and
blushes deeply when she’s
teased by classmates who ask
her how her mother became
pregnant. She wants to become
26 FEBRUARY 24, 2022
a nurse but is sensitive and
naive to the way the world
works. Anne is keen on taking
Hannah outside of her comfort
zone. Growing up with older
sister Margot, Anne is knowl-
edgeable, confident and outgoing.

She instigates kerfuffles with
Hannah, often being the first to
tease her on her childlikeness,
but also the first to apologize
and the first to ask Hannah for
help when she’s in a tight spot.

As quickly as their friend-
ship is established, it is stripped
away from them as the war
and the film escalate. Hannah
believes the Frank family flees
to Switzerland for a skiing
vacation that she was uninvited
from, and Hannah, baby sister
Gabi and father Hans Goslar
are captured by Nazis and sent
to Bergen-Belsen, where they
are separated.

In the days leading to the
camp’s liberation, Hannah’s
sole mission becomes to find
extra food to send over to a sick
Anne, who is in a different part
of the camp with harsher living
conditions. The title of the film, though
enticing to audiences, is
misleading, as the film features
modest screentime between
Hannah and Anne. Their
friendship serves as a plot device
to thread together Hannah’s
experiences before and during
the Holocaust, both of which
are punctuated by moments of
friendship with Anne.

In its efforts to bill itself
as a film about their relation-
ship, “My Best Friend Anne
Frank” instead tries to weave
together the narratives of two
complex characters, both of
whose stories fall flat.

Meaningful questions about
Hannah and her family are
left unanswered, particularly
as her family is given a way to
escape the camp. Due to the
family’s possession of Palestine
exchange papers, a detail not
explained in the film, they are
From left: Aiko Beemsterboer
and Josephine Arendsen as Anne
Frank and Hannah Goslar in “My
Best Friend Anne Frank”
Josephine Arendsen as Hannah
Goslar in “My Best Friend Anne
Frank” Courtesy of Dutch FilmWorks/IMDb
permitted to be exchanged
with a German prisoner of war.

According to a 1997 Scholastic
interview with Goslar, the
Goslar family also had
passports from Paraguay, and
their documentation allowed
them to occupy a part of the
camp that was exempt from the
Holocaust’s worst horrors.

Goslar is also originally
from Berlin; the family moved
to Amsterdam after a failed
attempt to move to England.

With little contextual infor-
mation about Hannah, the
film falls short in painting
her as a full-fledged character,
especially one independent
of Anne, whose story is so
well-documented. JEWISH EXPONENT
For a film that woefully
neglects plot points, “My Best
Friend Anne Frank” pays
refreshing attention to detail,
breathing life into a Holocaust
narrative that has been mirrored
in past films such as “The Boy in
the Striped Pajamas” and “The
Devil’s Arithmetic.”
The Jewish mourning
tradition of tearing clothing
depicted in the film is evocative.

Hannah can’t pass a threshold
of a room without kissing the
mezuzah, even retrograding a
couple of steps to make sure
she fulfills the mitzvah. In
these small moments, the film
reminds the audience of the
Jewish people’s deep commit-
ment to tradition, even in the
face of extreme adversity.

The story of Hannah as
depicted by “My Best Friend
Anne Frank” is a true reminder
of the humanity of those who
endured the Shoah. Beyond
being resilient and heroic,
survivors — particularly
children — are still human:
impetuous, impulsive and
misguided at times.

In its effort to tell the story
of two girls over several years,
“My Best Friend Anne Frank”
spreads itself a little too thin,
the important reminder of the
Shoah diluted by the film’s lack
of restraint. l
srogelberg@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0741
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM