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The Stolen Legacy of Anne Frank: Meyer Levin, Lillian Hellman, and the Dramatization of the Diary

AUTHOR: Ralph Melnick
ISBN: 0300069073
SHORT DESCRIPTION: As one of the first American journalists to enter the newly liberated concentration camps in the closing days of the Holocaust, Meyer Levin wished the world to know of the horror he had found. Seizing upon Anne Frank's Diary as a poignant voice to...

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Editorial Review

The Stolen Legacy of Anne Frank: Meyer Levin, Lillian Hellman, and the Dramatization of the Diary
- Book Review, by Ralph Melnick

From Library Journal
Melnick (library director and instructor of religion, William Northampton Sch., Massachusetts) focuses here on the obsession of journalist and thwarted playwright Meyer Levin in bringing to the world Anne Frank's story. Levin believed he had the rights to bring to life the stage production of the Diary as Anne Frank had meant it to be, after repeated discussions with her father. Otto Frank rejected Levin and his proposed work, hiring instead Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, a husband-and-wife team whose version was "safe." This purported bastardization of Anne Frank's diary led to Levin's 30-year obsession, which consumed him. Melnick gives every detail of the affair (too much for general readers), convincingly enough to refute Lawrence Graver's recent An Obsession with Anne Frank (Univ. of California, 1995). For those who never questioned the completeness or accuracy of Anne Frank's Diary, the resulting arguments and revelations are enlightening, yet "the Diary, now 50 years old, remains astonishing and excruciating."?Kay Meredith Dusheck, Univ. of Iowa, Iowa CityCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The New York Times Book Review, Robert Leiter
Melnick, who is library director and instructor of religion at Williston Northampton School in Easthampton, Mass., builds a credible case ... But a credible case does not mean an airtight one.... so many elements would have had to click for Hellman to push aside a producer and a possible playwright and then take over the reins that it strains credulity. Still, Melnick does show that once the playing field was clear, Hellman managed to dominate the proceedings and the players.

From Kirkus Reviews
A painstakingly detailed account of the long and bitter battle over the American stage adaptation of Anne Frank's famous diary. Melnick, a religion instructor at Williston Northampton School, has sifted through thousands of pages of correspondence and legal briefs to trace how novelist Meyer Levin shepherded the diary to an American publisher, gave it prominence with a New York Times review, first suggested it be adapted for Broadway in 1951, and wrote a faithful theatrical version. However, Otto Frank, Anne's assimilationist father, was persuaded to reject his version in favor of the husband-and-wife team Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett and producer Kermit Bloomgarden. All three were close to Lillian Hellman, who helped with the last few of the eight drafts of the play. Although the production was a major success and earned a Pulitzer, Melnick convincingly demonstrates that Levin was fully justified in his charge that they de-Judaized Anne Frank's diary. For example, Anne's words, ``Perhaps through Jewish suffering, the world will learn good,'' were revised in the play to ``Jews were not the only ones who suffered from the Nazis.'' Melnick also documents how unrelenting the playwrights and producer were in ``suppressing'' Levin's play, which first saw the light of day in the US in a 1972 student production. Melnick also recounts how the Levin-Hellman feud became entangled in the politics of McCarthyism. Finally, the reader is shown how Levin's three-decade-long crusade tyrannized his own life; at one point, Melnick reveals, Levin's long-suffering wife, Tereska, feeling she had lost her husband to his endless vendetta, tried to drown herself in the Hudson. Melnick's impressively documented work is a resounding refutation of Lawrence Graver's 1995 anti-Levin An Obsession with Anne Frank. But the author's almost blow-by-blow account of the long dispute will limit its accessibility to only the hardiest of Anne Frank, Meyer Levin, Lillian Hellman, or American theater aficionados. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Book Description
Meyer Levin`s overtly `Jewish` dramatization of Anne Frank`s Diary was rejected in favor of a play with a more universal message, conceived by Lillian Hellman and others in her circle. Levin was convinced that a conspiracy existed to delete the Jewish elements from the diary. Now Melnick draws on material never used before-including papers of Lillian Hellman, Otto Frank, and other key players-and substantiates Levin`s claims.

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Book Review

The Stolen Legacy of Anne Frank: Meyer Levin, Lillian Hellman, and the Dramatization of the Diary
- Book Reviews, by Ralph Melnick

The Stolen Legacy of Anne Frank: Meyer Levin, Lillian Hellman, and the Dramatization of the Diary

FROM THE PUBLISHER

As one of the first American journalists to enter the newly liberated concentration camps in the closing days of the Holocaust, Meyer Levin wished the world to know of the horror he had found. Seizing upon Anne Frank's Diary as a poignant voice to tell the tale, he helped to arrange for its American publication and secured from Anne's father the right to adapt it for the theater. But Levin's overtly "Jewish" treatment was rejected in favor of a play with a universal message, conceived by Lillian Hellman and others in her circle. Anne's thoughts about her Jewishness were distorted, omitted, and reworded in this new version, and Levin was convinced that a conspiracy existed to delete the Jewish elements from the diary. He spent the rest of his life protesting this suppression of Anne's legacy and fighting for the right to produce his own play. Now Ralph Melnick draws on material never used before - including papers of Lillian Hellman, Otto Frank, and other key players - and substantiates Levin's claims.

FROM THE CRITICS

Kirkus Reviews

A painstakingly detailed account of the long and bitter battle over the American stage adaptation of Anne Frank's famous diary.

Melnick, a religion instructor at Williston Northampton School, has sifted through thousands of pages of correspondence and legal briefs to trace how novelist Meyer Levin shepherded the diary to an American publisher, gave it prominence with a New York Times review, first suggested it be adapted for Broadway in 1951, and wrote a faithful theatrical version. However, Otto Frank, Anne's assimilationist father, was persuaded to reject his version in favor of the husband-and-wife team Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett and producer Kermit Bloomgarden. All three were close to Lillian Hellman, who helped with the last few of the eight drafts of the play. Although the production was a major success and earned a Pulitzer, Melnick convincingly demonstrates that Levin was fully justified in his charge that they de-Judaized Anne Frank's diary. For example, Anne's words, "Perhaps through Jewish suffering, the world will learn good," were revised in the play to "Jews were not the only ones who suffered from the Nazis." Melnick also documents how unrelenting the playwrights and producer were in "suppressing" Levin's play, which first saw the light of day in the US in a 1972 student production. Melnick also recounts how the Levin-Hellman feud became entangled in the politics of McCarthyism. Finally, the reader is shown how Levin's three-decade-long crusade tyrannized his own life; at one point, Melnick reveals, Levin's long-suffering wife, Tereska, feeling she had lost her husband to his endless vendetta, tried to drown herself in the Hudson.

Melnick's impressively documented work is a resounding refutation of Lawrence Graver's 1995 anti-Levin An Obsession with Anne Frank. But the author's almost blow-by-blow account of the long dispute will limit its accessibility to only the hardiest of Anne Frank, Meyer Levin, Lillian Hellman, or American theater aficionados.

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