Anne Frank

Briarcliff has a new patient and she claims to be the infamous Anne Frank who died during the Holocaust. Only she didn't die, she says. She continued her life in America so her martyr status would open the world's eyes to the injustices occurring in Germany. Now she's in Boston beating up anti-Semites. The woman does have a mark on her arm to prove she was held in a concentration camp. So she may be being honest, or she just knows a good tattoo artist. With so many asylum patients claiming they didn't kill their families and fabricating false stories (more on that later)

Until this episode, Dr. Arden was the most evil man running around Briarcliff. That title now belongs to Dr. Oliver Thredson, who is finally revealed as Bloody Face. Ryan Murphy did a great job hiding the identity of Bloody Face to this point. Thredson seemed to be the most genuinely humane person working in the asylum, which isn't saying much considering its run by former Nazis, other killers and a promiscuous nun who hit a young girl while driving drunk.  So how did we come to find out that Dr. Thredson is doing his best impression of Buffalo Bill?

The Millennium Theatre Company, one of Baltimore's newer small companies, will present "The Diary of Anne Frank" at Cupper's coffee house for three weekends beginning tomorrow. Prudence Barry directs a cast headed by Marcie Levin, Gina DiPaula, Greg Seagle and Seth Morrison.Adapted for the stage by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, the 1956 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama is based on the diary kept by teen-ager Anne Frank in the Amsterdam hiding place where she, her family and four others sought refuge from the Nazis.

Holocaust survivor Sam Ponczak was a toddler when he and his mother escaped from Nazi-occupied Poland. Ponczak, who is Jewish, was taken to Soviet Russia. He spent the remainder of World War II in a Siberian labor camp with his parents. His story is a mixture of his early memories and family accounts. A Columbia resident, Ponczak, 69, shared his story and answered questions from cast and audience members Saturday afternoon after a performance of The Diary of Anne Frank at Hammond High School.

Miami. -- With butchers stealing gold from the jaw teeth of corpses and peeling off human skin for use as lampshades.With flakes of ash that once were women and men spewing from the smokestacks of mass crematoria and infants being tossed live from third-story windows.With hunger, privation and fear gnawing the joy from her soul, and with all the world at war, she wrote: '' . . . in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.''Sometimes, I think it's the most troubling thing anyone has ever said.

Some of the actors are already older than Anne Frank was when she died in a Nazi concentration camp.Some 50 years later, the Liberty High School Drama Club will present "The Diary of Anne Frank" at 7:30 p.m. today, tomorrow and Saturday in the school auditorium.The play tells the true story of Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl who was driven into hiding with her family and others in Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II. The play is based on the diary she kept that chronicled her 2 1/2 -year experience before the group was captured.

Last month, many of us saw glimpses of a memorial service honoring the life and compassion of a 15-year-old girl whose life was lost during the Holocaust. The service of remembrance was telecast nationally, yet only a portion of the power and transforming love of this moment was captured through the midst of chaos and inner squabblings of our own Congress in Washington. Good news always continues to be rather unnoteworthy!One remarkable component of this experience for me was that that service was developed and shared in an ecumenical spiritual setting.

GLENELG HIGH School's drama department is outdoing itself this month with a holiday doubleheader.Teacher and drama coach Ron Oaks has announced the openings of two plays, beginning with "The Odd Couple" at 8 p.m. Nov. 22 and 23 and at 3 p.m. Nov. 24.Neil Simon's comedy stars Michael Schwartz as Oscar and Nevin Kumar as Felix.Their poker buddies include Chris Miles, Corey Murray, Ryan Kafer and Tristan Spence.The Pigeon sisters will be Jenna Bythrow and Lori Tvarkunas.During intermission, songs of 1965 with a New York flavor will be played.

Fifty years ago, a young girl died.This was not unique, given the time (Aug. 8, 1944) or the place (a nation occupied by the Nazis).Her name lives on, far longer than her short life.Anne Frank, age 16 at the time of her death, left behind, in the annex where she and her family had lived as refugees, a diary.That diary, found by the generous family who had cared for the Franks during their 2 1/2 -year ordeal, was later published by her father as "The Diary of Anne Frank."That diary was read worldwide, became a play and movie, and will play again in the Liberty High School auditorium Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.The play, a production of the Liberty High School Drama Club, will be performed in a simple set before an audience whose hands will be stamped with numbers in memory of the brands that marked prisoners in concentration camps.

It is one of history's most delicious triumphs that the men who murdered Anne Frank believed their empire would last a thousand years, but it lasted only 12 and ended in fire and ash, while the rats picked at their bones.Meanwhile, it's her name that will last a millennium -- and perhaps longer.Her prickly humanness, her palpable humanity, her sweetness and her complexity are re-evoked in the grave, beautiful and heartbreaking "Anne Frank Remembered," which opens today at the Charles, where it rotates with "Taxi Driver."

In a time of turmoil in Europe shortly after World War II, one Jewish girl's personal testimony became a symbol of the viciousness of the Nazis. This heartwarming and heart-wrenching story was brought to life in Atholton High School's production of The Diary of Anne Frank. Based on the diary of a young Jewish girl in hiding with her family in Amsterdam during the German occupation of Holland, the play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett opened in 1955. The Atholton production used a newly adapted script by Wendy Kesselman for the 1997 Broadway revival.

LOS ANGELES -- Shelley Winters, a blond bombshell of the 1940s who evolved into a character actress best remembered for her roles as victims, shrews and matrons, died yesterday. She was 85. Ms. Winters, the first actress to win two Oscars in the best supporting category, died of heart failure at the Rehabilitation Centre of Beverly Hills, her publicist Dale Olson announced. She was hospitalized in October after suffering a heart attack. Although most sources give her birth date as Aug. 18, 1922, she told Variety's Army Archerd in 2004 that she had lied to studio head Harry Cohn when she signed with Columbia and was born two years earlier.

Journey from the Land of No, by Roya Hakakian. Crown. 245 pages. $23. The transcendent poignancy of Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl lies in the coming-of-age story of a teen-ager against the backdrop of a gathering, obliterating evil force. In Anne, we recognize all the yearnings, petulance and wonder of a talented adolescent, knowing all the time that this precious bulb is doomed never to realize her full blossoming. Roya Hakakian, fortunately, avoids Anne's fate by safely emigrating to America with her family, but her story too is about the stunting of a vibrant young woman who, like Anne, stands in awe as she catches a glimpse of all the vast potential within herself precisely at the exact moment when an oppressive, annihilating regime makes her self-actualization impossible.

NEW YORK - A small, pointed nose and a pair of shining eyes peer out between two towering piles of book, making Judith Jones look for all the world like the City Mouse, eyeing a tempting morsel of cheddar. Granted, Jones has been asked to pose with her books by a photographer in the Manhattan office of Alfred A. Knopf, where she is a senior editor and vice president - but not until after the shutterbug had listened to her talk for nearly two hours. There is something about her small, neat presence, her blend of modesty, inquisitiveness and boldness, that makes the analogy to Aesop's fable fit. During her 46 years in the publishing business, Jones has become the mouse that roared.

Two Holocaust survivors told their stories of courage to an enraptured group of about 40 sixth-graders and their parents at Folly Quarter Middle School in Ellicott City last week. The two women recounted their childhood memories - one of being hidden in convents and homes, and one of being sent to America to live with strangers - with a positive message of the goodness of those who helped them. They each sprinkled their tales with humor to help get their points across that, although there were horrors, it was not a completely dark period.

Most 15-year-olds don't fret about where to publish their best short story or contemplate how childhood is lonelier than old age. But Anne Frank, as almost everyone knows, was not like most teen-agers. A young woman with a vivid imagination and a precocious writing talent, she contemplated both ideas when she lived in hiding in the Netherlands during the Holocaust. Although she is most well-known for her diary, which has been translated into nearly 70 languages, sold over 30 million copies and been turned into stage and film productions, Frank also wrote fairy tales and essays.

Most 15-year-olds don't fret about where to publish their best short story or contemplate how childhood is lonelier than old age. But Anne Frank, as almost everyone knows, was not like most teen-agers. A young woman with a vivid imagination and a precocious writing talent, she contemplated both ideas when she lived in hiding in the Netherlands during the Holocaust. Although she is most well-known for her diary, which has been translated into nearly 70 languages, sold over 30 million copies and been turned into stage and film productions, Frank also wrote fairy tales and essays.

Anne Frank's birthday It's hard to believe that Anne Frank would be 74 years old this month. Her birthday was June 12. It's also hard to believe that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington opened its doors 10 years ago. In honor of Frank's birthday and the museum's anniversary, a stirring and sobering exhibit, Anne Frank the Writer - An Unfinished Story, will be on display now through Sept. 12 in the Wexner Learning Center at the museum. Anne Frank wrote voraciously during her two years in hiding, from the age of 13 to 15, penning short stores, essays, fairy tales and the beginnings of a novel.