Selling the Holocaust

Most, if not all people have read The Diary of Anne Frank. It is widely recognized as the "Holocaust Bible."(which is an odd designation, considering that she was Jewish. Why not the "Holocaust Torah"?) The Holocaust is merely the backdrop for the book, which mainly concerns one girl's attempts to cope with day to day life in an impossibly difficult situation. A big deal has been made about the fact that when her father first had the diary published, he edited out parts concerning Anne's conflicts with her mother and introspective sections about her budding sexuality. It has been argued that by omitting parts of the book, an incomplete picture of the situation in the attic is painted, and that by ignoring Anne's sexuality, she was in a sense transformed into an androgenous character in these events. Whatever her father's motives in leaving out the mother/daughter conflict, its absence did nothing to minimize the power of the diary. I mean hell, the guy's whole family was killed, give him a break--why would he want to dishonor their memory by revealing petty family squabbles to the world? As to the sections about Anne's sexuality, it is easier to see why those were omitted. In the 1950's when the book was first published, people weren't ready for a pubescent girl's graphic descriptions of her changing body. And besides, what father would want the whole world reading his daughter's private thoughts on going through puberty? I know I wouldn't.
I don't fault Otto Frank for leaving out certain parts of the diary in the published version. Everyone wants to portray themselves and events in the best light possible, especially when something is recorded for posterity.
Take for example the debacle with the anti-Islamic cartoons that were published in Denmark. Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper who was responsible for the cartoons, is a well known neo-con with ties to Daniel Pipes (who gained notoriety for his observation that, "[Muslim immigrants are] brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene").
Rose claims that he requested the cartoons because, "I was concerned about a tendency toward self-censorship among people in artistic and cultural circles in Europe. That's why I commissioned these cartoons, to test this tendency and to start a debate about it." Bullshit. When asked if he would publish a cartoon of Airel Sharon strangling a Palestinian baby, he replied that he wouldn't becuase some would find it "offensive." When recently approached with a cartoon lampooning Jesus, he declined to publish it because he "didn't request it."
Is it really about freedom of speech and sparking debate? Or is is simply a racist, neo-con asshole trying to cover his ass after the shit hit the fan?