Madrid - "It is a very entertaining musical, with intimate moments and a lot of comedy," is how director Daniel Garcia Chavez describes a new Spanish musical called The Diary of Anne Frank - a Song to Life. The musical may be enjoyable, but is it an appropriate way to deal with the tragic subject of the Holocaust?
The upcoming premiere of the musical on Anne Frank has sparked a debate on what kinds of limits should govern the artistic treatment of a subject which is bound to be taken up by artists for decades to come.
Anne Frank's relatives are strongly against turning her life into "entertainment," says Buddy Elias, Anne's cousin and president of the Basel-based Anne Frank Fonds.
The Fonds has the copyright to the famous diary the young Jewish girl wrote in her family's hiding place in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam between 1942 and 1944.
The Anne Frank Foundation, which runs a museum in the house where Anne's family lived in hiding, has a more positive view of the musical, which will have its premiere at Madrid's HaagenDazs-Calderon theatre on February 28.
"The musical makes you want to weep rather than laugh," says Jan Erik Dubbelman of the foundation, which has cooperated with the theatre group to make sure the historical facts are correct.
A natural literary talent, Anne Frank depicted her daily life, family relationships, hopes and even philosophical questions in the diary which was given to her on her 13th birthday.
After the deaths of Anne, her mother and sister in the Bergen- Belsen concentration camp, the diary became one of the most widely read books in the world.
"I don't like Anne Frank being treated as entertainment," Elias told Deutsche Presse-Agentur
