The stories of Anne and Leon, in many ways, are wildly different.
Discover their stories with even more insight below.
Anne Frank = Typical font. / Leon Greenman = Italics.
A teenager during the Holocaust.
An adult, with a wife and child , during the Holocaust.
Confined in a tiny space, trapped.
Confined within the wrath of the Nazi regime.
Suffering the loss of their parents - the Unknown taking over everything else.
Mourning over the knowledge of their wife and child's deaths.
In many ways, partially surviving due to their writing. Their sanity trapped between the pages of a diary, sprawled upon with ink.
Surviving due to clever knowledge and skills - using everything he could to his advantage.
A victim.
A survivor.
Anne Frank is known around the world - her story having been produced millions of times across the world.
Leon Greenman is less well known - but, still, his story has touched thousands. Whether it be in schools or business meetings, Leon continued to tell his story.
Anne continued to show her story through words on paper, rather than words spoken aloud.
Leon continued to tell his painful story through words, later writing a book (An Englishman in Auschwitz), too.
They are both united by one thing, though.
A single thing which lead to so much more.
They both suffered the perils of the Holocaust.
Their Stories - And Their Differences
As noted above, their are many differences between these two people.
For example, simplistic things like birth dates separate them instantly.
Anne was born on the 12th June 1929.
Leon was born on the 18th December 1910.
They sound simple at first.
Birth dates have significance usually, but not much.
But these dates cause a much bigger aftermath.
One of the ways Leon survived was due to his age.
He was young and appeared strong - the perfect candidate for the hard labour which took place in the camps.
Maybe - if he was younger and weaker - his death at the age of 97 would never have been able to
These are questions which we have no questions to.
But there's nothing holding us back from conjuring possibilities..
For example, would Anne's fate have changed if she had been older?
Would she still have gone into hiding, even with a family of her own?
Would she have duplicated her father's views, seeing the only method of escape as being going into hiding?
Would her pain have been as severe?
These questions will always remain unanswered.
But it's good to see things in different perspectives.
Possibilities, rather than solid facts.
For example, simplistic things like birth dates separate them instantly.
Anne was born on the 12th June 1929.
Leon was born on the 18th December 1910.
They sound simple at first.
Birth dates have significance usually, but not much.
But these dates cause a much bigger aftermath.
One of the ways Leon survived was due to his age.
He was young and appeared strong - the perfect candidate for the hard labour which took place in the camps.
Maybe - if he was younger and weaker - his death at the age of 97 would never have been able to
These are questions which we have no questions to.
But there's nothing holding us back from conjuring possibilities..
For example, would Anne's fate have changed if she had been older?
Would she still have gone into hiding, even with a family of her own?
Would she have duplicated her father's views, seeing the only method of escape as being going into hiding?
Would her pain have been as severe?
These questions will always remain unanswered.
But it's good to see things in different perspectives.
Possibilities, rather than solid facts.
Another large difference between these stories, is the actual Holocaust which both Anne and Leon experienced.
Anne's Holocaust - though having such a wildly different ending - mainly took place in hiring.
It worsened by extreme heights afterwards, but the confinement she had been forced into - though obviously less severe than the brutality which happened within concentration camps - was still forced upon her family.
If the Nazi views had been different, Anne would have lived a very different childhood.
Her right to education had been destroyed in an instant.
Her friends - and much of her past life - had gone.
Her freedom had been taken away from her.
When the Nazis found her, she was forced into even more pain.
Punished for being Jewish.
Her death was tragic.
A death which should have never happened.
Leon experienced more of the Holocaust as we know it today.
He constantly travelled from camp to camp; suffered hard labour; had to do more than he ever should have done, simply to survive.
He suffered the loss of his wife and child - and, even while he knew this deep down, he continued to fight.
He nearly gave up on several occasions.
But he survived.
Possibly the biggest difference between these two stories is the way they ended.
Anne died during the years of the Holocaust, months before liberation finally arrived.
She died at the age of 15, in February or March 1945.
Leon survived the Holocaust.
Horrors remained with him which would never leave -and loneliness had taken over.
But his life continued.
He was just like any person in London at the time.
The only difference, a past which would cause tears to shed at the first instance.
He died at the age of 97, on 7th March 2008.
Leon, during his later life, campaigned against racism.
He lead marches against racism; wrote a biography; told his story hundreds of times.
And never let his memories - though so painful - truly leave him.
We will never truly know what Anne would have done with her life, if her right to be living hadn't been taken away with her.
Quite possibly, her aspirations of becoming a journalist would have become the reality.
Or, if she had been alive, maybe her story may have never been told.
If she had been alive, her diary may have stayed private, as previously intended.
And Anne Frank - the most famous Holocaust victim - wouldn't be known today.
Their Stories - And Their Similarities
The stories of Anne and Leon are united by one thing, which multiplies and morphs into so many more.
They both shared equal amounts of horrors, which centred around one horrific concept, thought up by a single Nazi.
Himmler's Holocaust.
They both lost people who they held dearest.
Anne lost her sister and mother before her own death - and, though it turned out to be false, she lived the last months of her life believing her father had perished, too.
Leon lost both his wife and his son - and, also, his wife's grandmother who he must have bonded with in Rotterdam.
They both had to move from places they had loved, due to anti-Semitism.
Anne from Frankfurt to Amsterdam, and then later into hiding.
Leon from Rotterdam to the Ghetto.
They both went to Concentration camps.
Anne went to Auschwitz - like Leon - and then Bergen Belsen, where she perished.
Leon went to many camps, including Auschwitz and Monowitz - the last camp he arrived in.
They both witnessed the horrors of human nature - at its very worst.
Murder; violence; hate; prejudice; discrimination.
All at the same time.
They both, even with everything life had thrown at them, saw people in a positive light.
Anne told us in her writing.
Leon couldn't forgive or forget - but he didn't allow hatred to take over.
They both were innocent.
They both shared equal amounts of horrors, which centred around one horrific concept, thought up by a single Nazi.
Himmler's Holocaust.
They both lost people who they held dearest.
Anne lost her sister and mother before her own death - and, though it turned out to be false, she lived the last months of her life believing her father had perished, too.
Leon lost both his wife and his son - and, also, his wife's grandmother who he must have bonded with in Rotterdam.
They both had to move from places they had loved, due to anti-Semitism.
Anne from Frankfurt to Amsterdam, and then later into hiding.
Leon from Rotterdam to the Ghetto.
They both went to Concentration camps.
Anne went to Auschwitz - like Leon - and then Bergen Belsen, where she perished.
Leon went to many camps, including Auschwitz and Monowitz - the last camp he arrived in.
They both witnessed the horrors of human nature - at its very worst.
Murder; violence; hate; prejudice; discrimination.
All at the same time.
They both, even with everything life had thrown at them, saw people in a positive light.
Anne told us in her writing.
Leon couldn't forgive or forget - but he didn't allow hatred to take over.
They both were innocent.
'The Stories of the Holocaust'.
A homework project by Sam Broadhead.
Completed 14th June 2016.
A homework project by Sam Broadhead.
Completed 14th June 2016.