The Anne Frank Game

I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house as a child.  We lived with them for nearly a year when I was four.

At some point, my grandmother told me the story of Anne Frank, minus the part where they all get caught and sent to concentration camps. 

I became deeply fascinated by Anne Frank, and Meemaw invented a game in which I was Anne Frank and she was some other, less glamorous member of the family.  We'd sneak upstairs and try to be as still and quiet as possible.

Inevitably, Meemaw's role in the game would require that she go downstairs to fend off some Nazis or stage a rendezvous with the German neighbor who smuggled us our groceries.

Meanwhile, I stuck to my post in the secret annex, thinking how nice Meemaw was to play the lesser role that involved going downstairs to the boring part of the house.

Eventually, Meemaw would return from the perilous outside world with a snack she'd scavenged.

The Nazis always lost the war just in time for Rugrats, or dinner, or both.

When I think of the Anne Frank game now, I am in awe of my grandmother's ingenious ploy to keep me out of trouble for hours at a time and simultaneously teach me about World War II.

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