Teen attends Frank celebration

By Jomay Steen, Journal Staff Writer | Sunday, July 24, 2005

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BUFFALO -- With some help from generous friends and community, a Buffalo youth and his parents attended the 75th birthday celebration of a Holocaust icon.

Jonathan Weitschat, 17, recently returned from the 75th birthday tribute to Anne Frank celebrated June 7 at Pier 60 at Chelsea Pier near the Hudson River in New York City.

The evening's gala included musical performances by Cyndi Lauper, Michael Feinstein and Lili Haydn. Actress and comedienne Whoopi Goldberg and Millie Perkins, star of the 1959 film "The Diary of Anne Frank," were two of the featured readers of excerpts from the diary.

Among the hundreds of guests, Weitschat met and mingled with Anne Franks' cousins, Mary Lou Storm Donarski and the actor Buddy Elias.

"He looked like Anne's father, Otto Frank," Weitschat said of Elias.

Sixty-three years ago this month, Anne Frank and her family with four other people disappeared behind the bookshelf of her father's warehouse annex in Amsterdam.

The two years that the eight people lived in hiding from Nazi oppression is documented in the teenager's diary that she received on June 12, 1942, a gift for her 13th birthday. Published after her death in a German concentration camp, "The Diary of Anne Frank" captured the world's attention.

Today, the story continues to move readers as far away as Buffalo, S.D.

An admirer of Anne's spirit and courage, Weitschat's interest in the story began after meeting Miep Gies at a Sioux Falls convention in 1997.

Gies provided food and supplies to the Frank family while they were in hiding. After the Nazis captured the family, Gies found Anne Frank's diaries, notebooks and photo albums in the attic hiding place and returned them to Otto Frank, the only member of Anne's immediate family to survive the Holocaust.

Inspired, Weitschat wrote a letter to Gies commending her for risking her life to help Anne Frank and her family.

Gies replied to his note, touched by his kindness and the $3 he sent for her to continue her cause of saving people.

Gies writes: "Jonathan, stay the way you are. I am 88 and my health probably will not allow me to continue writing letters, but I find peace to know that other people will continue to make our world a better and more human place."

Encouraged, Weitschat continued to support the Anne Frank Center in Lower Manhattan.

Last March, the Anne Frank Center, a nonprofit human-rights organization, invited Weitschat to its inaugural birthday celebration and fundraiser.

After meeting Weitschat, Greg Radicone, exhibits manager at the Anne Frank Center, echoed Gies' sentiment.

Radicone, who sat at the Weitschats' table during dinner, said Weitschat had brought along a birthday card that he gave to the center.

"We were happy to have him," he said.

Radicone said Anne Frank's themes of overcoming bigotry and racism continue to strike a chord in all societies because they are as relevant today as when Anne Frank wrote them in 1944. He pointed out that Weitschat faced criticism and derision from his high school peers.

"He better than many of the others in the room understood the message of the diaries," Radicone said.

The New York man commended the Buffalo teenager for his spirit, enthusiasm and admiration of a true hero. "What a great kid," Radicone said.

Weitschat's prayer is that people begin to treat each other with kindness and compassion. His experience at the Anne Frank tribute brought that to light.

"This was a once in a lifetime dream," he said.

Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com