“I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.”

This is the first entry in The Dairy of Anne Frank. She wrote it on June 12, 1942 – her 13th birthday. At that moment, she was a normal teenager living with her family in the Netherlands, where they moved from Frankfurt after Hitler’s rise to power. This was one of Anne’s last diary entries as a carefree teenager. Less than a month later, on July 5, 1942, her family was summoned for deportation to the Westerbork concentration camp.  

“The entry that Anne made in the diary exactly 75 years ago, and what she wrote in the duration of that entire week – that is the last proof of normal life. Friends, plans, prosperity,” said Edna Friedberg, curator of the National Holocaust Museum in Washington. “Instantly, Anne will be in a nightmare world. She will have to literally disappear, physically disappear.”

She did just that, vanishing into an Amsterdam rowhouse. The canal-facing Opekta Building became a shelter for Anne’s family and a few more Jews. They hid in a 46 square meter room behind a door masked as a bookcase. Here, Anne wrote letters to her imaginary friend Kitty about everything that worried her: her relationship with her parents, her first love, arguments over food, violence in the streets below.

The Holocaust survivor Primo Levi wrote that there is a duty not to understand the Holocaust, “because to understand is to justify.” But, he maintained, “If understanding is impossible, knowing is imperative, because what happened could happen again.” Anne Frank’s account remains a terrifying part of truly “knowing” the Holocaust.

“Often in the evening, in the darkness, I see columns of innocent people walking, driven by a pair of scoundrels, who beat them and torture them until they fall to the ground,” wrote Frank. “They don’t spare anybody: the elderly, children, infants, the sick, pregnant women – everyone goes to face death …It’s a terrible feeling to suddenly be an excess.”

Frank’s diary became one of 35 objects included in the Memory of the World Register, a UNESCO World Heritage List. Currently, the book is translated into 67 languages. Every modern schoolchild knows the Jewish girl’s name.

“This is proof that history isn’t statistics and facts, it’s always the fates of people,” said Friedberg.

Anne wrote her last entry in the diary on August 1, 1944. Everybody who was hiding in the building was found, arrested and sent to a death camp. Anne died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March of 1945.

“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”’ Friedman stopped reading and looked up. “That’s my favorite quote from her diary. It’s painful to think that the girl believed in humanity until her last days.”

The 15-year-old girl’s 7-month stay at the camp, punctuated by slave labor, hunger and finally death, hardly confirm her optimistic words. Anne’s father Otto was the only member of the family to survive the Holocaust. He decided to publish the diary as proof that his daughter lived, loved and hoped. Anne became the voice of 6 million Jews – the victims of the Holocaust.

“Just think about how many talented and smart children like that were destroyed,” said Friedman.

One-point-five million Jewish children died during the years of the Holocaust. “Multiply this number by a million,” they say at the Memorial Museum in Washington. The lost life of a child is lost generations. Proof of that is the fate of a girl named Louisa, who was in hiding on the same street as Anne Frank. She survived. Today, 75-year-old Louisa Lawrence lives in Bethesda, Maryland and has three daughters and six grandchildren. Most often today, she has to answer the question: How does she feel about the thought that she was able to survive, but Anne, the girl who lived next door, didn’t?

“I am truly sorry for her,” said Lawrence. “But at the same time I’m thankful that my family was able to survive. I remember when The Diary of Anne Frank was published, everyone was uncomfortable. They didn’t want to talk about it, because it was painful, and embarrassing for others. This diary, written with the truthful words of a young girl, forced the world to hear about the horrors of that time.”
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Police in Russia have detained hundreds of protesters and some journalists at anti-corruption demonstrations in cities across the country on Russia’s national day.  The protests were organized by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was detained in Moscow as he left his home to try to join a demonstration in the capital.  VOA’s Moscow Correspondent Daniel Schearf reports that the White House condemned the detentions and said it is monitoring the situation.
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Poland’s defense minister is hailing an upcoming visit by U.S. President Donald Trump as an “enormous event” and a success of his conservative government.

The White House said Friday that Trump will visit Poland on July 6 before he joins the Group of 20 summit in Germany. It said the visit to Poland is meant to reaffirm America’s “steadfast commitment to one of our closest European allies.”

Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said late Sunday the upcoming visit, which Poland had sought, “is an enormous event showing how much Poland’s place in geopolitics and world politics has changed” under his party, Law and Justice, which took power in 2015.

The nationalist party shares Trump’s opposition to Muslims migrants and, like the U.S. leader, talks of restoring national greatness.
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British business leaders are stepping up their Brexit-related demands, seeking to capitalize on last week’s election which saw Theresa May’s ruling Conservatives weakened and denied an outright parliamentary majority.

They are lobbying for the government to negotiate a much closer relationship with the European Union than previously planned by the embattled May, who appears determined to cling to power, at least in the short term, in the face of fury in the party over last week’s election result.

“We must have access to the European market — it is our biggest trading partner,” said Stephen Martin of the Institute of Directors, a lobbying group for business leaders. Business confidence has plunged since last Thursday’s upset election amid signs of a sharp economic slowdown, and company bosses blame uncertainty over the make-up of the government and over Brexit, according to a survey taken by the institute of its members.

Business demands

“It is hard to overstate what a dramatic impact the current political uncertainty is having on business leaders, and the consequences could — if not addressed immediately — be disastrous for the UK economy,” said Martin. Nearly 72 percent of IoD members said “reaching a new trade agreement with the EU” should be the highest priority of the new government.

Business leaders, who view the election result as a rebuff of May’s “hard Brexit” plan, are urging the prime minister to confirm quickly the residency rights of three million European nationals already living in Britain, arguing they are crucial for key sectors of the British economy. They also at the very least want non-tariff access to the Single Market.

Airbus, the aerospace giant, has laid out non-negotiable demands to the government on Brexit, including freedom of movement of their workers and maintaining regulatory harmonization with the EU, warning that if the demands aren’t met production will be shifted overseas. The company employs 10,000 workers in Britain and says another 100,000 British jobs are dependent on Airbus remaining in the country.

Uncertainties

But as business leaders demand a rethink of Brexit, it remains unclear what direction the twisting and turning May will take. The moves she has made so far to shore up her precarious position are sending mixed signals.

In a bid to stave off a leadership challenge, May has avoided making major changes to her Cabinet, leaving those most likely to challenge her for the leadership in the positions they held before last week’s election. Before the election she’d planned a major cabinet shake-up.

But she has brought into the Cabinet arch-Brexiter Michael Gove, while at the same time promoting longtime friend the pro-EU Damien Green to act as her deputy. It appears that May is searching for a way to balance the demands of moderates and hard Brexiters in a desperate bid to cling to power.

But threading the needle isn’t easy. She isn’t being helped by her Brexit minister, David Davis, who when asked in a television interview Monday whether the government should now listen to business and pursue a softer break with Europe insisted the hard Brexit plan hadn’t changed.

In a TV interview Sunday, Michael Fallon, the defense minister, had indicated the reverse, saying: “We want to work with business on this.”

In search of alliances

Senior party figures outside the Cabinet maintained a drumbeat of disapproval of May Monday, predicting she would have to leave shortly. Anna Soubry, a former minister who campaigned last June for Britain to stay in the EU during the Brexit referendum, said May’s position was “untenable.”

And Chris Patten, a former Conservative Party chairman, was highly critical of the parliamentary voting alliance May is concluding with Northern Ireland’s Protestant fundamentalist Democratic Unionist Party to boost her minority government, describing it as “lamentable.” “These are not people we can trust,” he said.

The ten Unionist lawmakers will give May a slight working majority in the House of Commons.

There are mounting fears that the voting alliance with the DUP risks unraveling the Northern Ireland peace process, which relies on the British government acting as a neutral broker between the DUP and the Catholic nationalist Sinn Fein.

Irish Republicans condemned Monday the voting arrangement being discussed between the DUP and the Conservatives, warning it would “end in tears.” Northern Ireland has been without a devolved administration for three months following the collapse of power sharing as a result of disputes between the DUP and Sinn Fein.

May was due late Monday to appear before the 1922 Committee, a gathering of backbench Conservative lawmakers. It will be crucial for her to convince the party she should stay on — at the very least to avoid another election or to give an opening to the Labour Party to form a minority government instead.
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Protests spearheaded by prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny were taking place across the country on Monday, but Navalny himself was reportedly arrested outside his Moscow home en route to the centerpiece demonstration in the capital city.

Navalny’s wife, Yulia, said on his Twitter feed that he was arrested about a half-hour before the demonstration was to begin. There was no immediate statement from police.

Although city authorities had agreed to a location for the Moscow protest, Navalny called for it to be moved to Tverskaya Street, one of Moscow’s main thoroughfares. He said contractors hired to build a stage at the agreed-upon venue could not do their work after apparently coming under official pressure.

Tverskaya, known in Soviet times as Gorky Street, was closed off to traffic on Monday for an extensive commemoration of the national holiday Russia Day, including people dressed in historical Russian costumes.

After the change, Moscow police warned that “any provocative actions from the protesters’ side will be considered a threat to public order and will be immediately suppressed.”

A regional security official, Vladimir Chernikov, told Ekho Moskvy radio that police would not interfere with demonstrators on the street – as long as they did not carry placards or shout slogans.

More than 1,000 protesters were arrested at a similar rally March 26.

The protests in March took place in scores of cities across the country, the largest show of discontent in years and a challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s dominance of the country.

The Kremlin has long sought to cast the opposition as a phenomenon of a privileged, Westernized urban elite out of touch with people in Russia’s far-flung regions. But Monday’s protests could demonstrate that it has significant support throughout the vast country.

Navalny’s website reported Monday that protests were held in more than a half-dozen cities in the Far East, including the major Pacific ports of Vladivostok and Khabarovsk and in Siberia’s Barnaul. Photos on the website suggested turnouts of hundreds at the rallies.

Eleven demonstrators were arrested in Vladivostok, according to OVD-Info, a website that monitors political repressions.

Navalny has become the most prominent figure in an opposition that has been troubled by factional disputes. He focuses on corruption issues and has attracted a wide following through savvy use of internet video. His report on alleged corruption connected to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was the focus of the March protests.

Navalny has announced his candidacy for the presidential election in 2018. He was jailed for 15 days after the March protests. In April, he suffered damage to one eye after an attacker doused his face with a green antiseptic liquid.

 
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Rafael Nadal defeated Stan Wawrinka in straight sets Sunday in the final match of the tennis French Open, winning the grand slam for the 10th time in his career.

“It is really incredible. To win La Decima is very, very special,” the 31-year-old Spaniard said shortly after becoming the only man in tennis history to win a major tournament 10 times.

Defeating Wawrinka of Switzerland 6-2, 6-3, 6-1, Nadal, often referred to as the “king of clay”, showed his dominance over the red clay courts of the French Open, also referred to as Roland Garros in Paris.

“The nerves, the adrenaline I feel when I play on this court, it is impossible to compare … it is the most important event in my career, to win again here is impossible to describe,” he said.

Just one day earlier, history was also made in Women’s Singles at the tournament when 20-year-old Latvian Jelena Ostapenko became the lowest ranked player ever to win the championship.

“I am really happy to win here. I think I’m still — I still cannot believe it, because it was my dream and now it came true,” she told reporters after defeating Simona Halep, who was seeded third in the tournament.

An unseeded player has not won the French Open since 1933.

 
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Ukrainians celebrated the first day of visa-free travel to the European Union Sunday in what President Petro Poroshenko called “a final exit of our country from the Russian empire.”

“The visa-free regime for Ukraine has started! Glory to Europe! Glory to Ukraine!” he tweeted from his official account Sunday morning.

The arrangement will allow Ukrainians with biometric passports to enter all EU member states other than Britain and Ireland for up to 90 days every six months for tourism or to visit family and friends.

Poroshenko met with Slovak counterpart Andrej Kiska Saturday on their common border, opening a symbolic “door to the EU.”

“Welcome to Europe,” Kiska told a crowd. “I want to call on you to continue carrying out reforms.”

Thousands of Ukrainians had crossed into EU countries by midday, according to the Ukranian Foreign Ministry’s consular department.

“#Bezviz [no visa] is just the beginning!” Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin wrote on Twitter, accompanied by photos of himself crossing the border into Hungary.

The EU approved the arrangement last month after repeated delays since it promised to cement ties with Kyiv in 2014. Ukraine that year became the scene of the worst confrontation between Russia and the West in Europe since the Cold War, with Moscow annexing Crimea and backing separatist rebels in the east of the country.

Visa-free travel is seen as a step toward Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, though major hurdles remain based on economic instability and fears of furthering escalating the conflict with Russia.
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Prime Minister Theresa May’s office said on Sunday there had been no change to plans for U.S. President Donald Trump’s to come to Britain on a state visit, after the Guardian newspaper reported the trip had been postponed.

The paper, citing an unnamed adviser at May’s Downing Street office who was in the room at the time, reported Trump had told May by telephone in recent weeks that he did not want to come if there were likely to be large-scale protests.

“We aren’t going to comment on speculation about the contents of private phone conversations,” a spokeswoman for May’s office said. “The queen extended an invitation to President Trump to visit the UK and there is no change to those plans.”

The White House had no immediate comment on the report.

No date has been set for the visit, which was agreed during May’s visit to Washington in January, but British media had reported it was planned for October.

Trump has come under fire in Britain this month for his public criticism of London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s response to an attack by Islamist militants in London, in which eight people were killed. May found herself forced to defend Khan, who is from the opposition Labour party.

At that time, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said there was no reason to cancel the visit, while White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that Trump intended to go and that “he appreciates Her Majesty’s gracious invitation”.
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Russia said on Saturday it had told the United States it was unacceptable for Washington to strike pro-government forces in Syria after the U.S. military carried out an airstrike on pro-Assad militia last month.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov relayed the message to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a phone call on Saturday initiated by the U.S. side, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

U.S. officials told Reuters last month that the U.S. military carried out the airstrike against militia supported by the government of President Bashar al-Assad, which it said posed a threat to U.S. forces and U.S.-backed Syrian fighters in the country’s south.

Russia said at the time that the U.S. action would hamper efforts to find a political solution to the conflict and had violated the sovereignty of Syria, one of Russia’s closest Middle East allies.

“Lavrov expressed his categorical disagreement with the U.S. strikes on pro-government forces and called on him to take concrete measures to prevent similar incidents in future,” the ministry said.

The two men had also exchanged assessments of the situation in Syria, it added, and confirmed their desire to step up cooperation to try to end the conflict there.

The ministry said Lavrov and Tillerson had also discussed the need to try to mend the rift between Qatar and other Arab nations through negotiations, and had talked about the state of U.S.-Russia relations and planned meetings between officials from the two countries.
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Amsterdam police said there was “no indication whatsoever” of terrorist involvement in an incident Saturday in which eight pedestrians were struck and injured by a car.

The car was parked illegally near Amsterdam Central Station, the city’s main rail terminal, police said. When officers approached the driver, the car lurched forward into a retaining wall, striking several pedestrians.

The police later tweeted, after speaking with the driver, that the incident appeared to have been unintentional. They said the driver had apparently been ill, but he was arrested.

Six of the injured people were hospitalized, a police spokeswoman said, adding that two were in serious condition.

Attacks over the past three weeks in England, beginning with a deadly suicide bombing at a concert hall in Manchester, and other terror-related incidents have put authorities in many European countries on high alert.
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U.S. President Donald Trump will visit NATO ally Poland before he heads to Germany for the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in July, the White House announced.

“The visit will reaffirm America’s steadfast commitment to one of our closest European allies and emphasize the administration’s priority of strengthening NATO’s collective defense,” the White House said in a statement late Friday.

Trump will deliver a major speech during the visit, and attend the Three Seas Initiative summit as a symbol of Washington’s “strong ties to Central Europe,” it said.

Leaders from several central, eastern and southern European countries are to meet in the city of Wroclaw in western Poland for the Three Seas summit on July 6-7.

The G-20 summit takes place in Hamburg on July 7-8.
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Peace talks on divided Cyprus are to resume in Geneva on June 28, the United Nations said Friday, ending a stalemate on procedure that had threatened to derail two years of negotiations.

Talks between Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci stalled last month in disagreement about a conference in Geneva including Britain, Turkey and Greece that would address post-settlement Cyprus security issues.

Both leaders met with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday in New York and agreed to resume talks.

They will both travel to Geneva for the negotiations later this month, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement Friday, along with Greece, Turkey and Britain as guarantor powers, and the European Union as an observer.

Cyprus was split in a Turkish invasion in 1974, triggered by a brief Greek-inspired coup.

Security issues related to the presence of up to 30,000 troops in the breakaway north of the island are a key sticking point in talks. Greek Cypriots perceive their presence after a settlement as a threat, while Turkish Cypriots say the troops are necessary for their security.
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The carnage of the London Bridge attack could have been worse: One of the attackers tried to rent a larger truck that could have killed more people, but his payment was declined. The bloodthirsty gang was also shot dead before they could make their way back to the van where their petrol bombs were stored.

In a rare glimpse into the weeklong investigation, police released details on Saturday that showed Khuram Butt originally tried to rent a 7.5 ton truck. The intended truck was smaller but similar to the one used in the Nice attack last year that killed 86 people and injured hundreds in the resort town in the south of France.

After his payment was declined, Butt and his two accomplices rented a smaller van that they used to plow into crowds before they leapt from the vehicle and went on a stabbing rampage in an attack that left eight people dead and nearly 50 people injured. It was the third such deadly attack in Britain in the three months.

​Knives featured pink blades 

After leaving the small white van, the men used 12-inch knives with bright pink blades, according to Dean Haydon, head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter-Terrorism Command.

Police also disclosed that multiple petrol bombs were discovered in the van, and a copy of the Quran opened at a page “describing martyrdom” was found at one of the attackers’ houses.

Investigators believe three victims were killed on the bridge, including one man who was thrown into the Thames River, before the attackers left the vehicle and stabbed five people to death around London’s busy Borough Market, Haydon said. Police believe Butt was driving the van.

“When I come back to Butt trying getting hold of a 7.5 ton lorry — the effect could have been even worse,” he said.

Molotov cocktails found

More than a dozen wine bottles filled with flammable liquid and rags wrapped around them in the shape of Molotov cocktails were found in the van. Two blow torches were also found.

Haydon said the men may have been planning even more bloodshed if they had survived their stabbing spree and made it back to the van.

Police also found a number of office chairs, gravel and a suitcase in the van.

Detectives believe the gravel may have been placed in the vehicle to make it heavier, or as part of a cover to justify hiring it, while the chairs may have been used to convince family and friends they were moving furniture.

Butt, a 27-year-old Pakistan-born British citizen, and his two accomplices, Rachid Redouane, 30, who claimed to be Moroccan-Libyan, and Youssef Zaghba, a 22-year-old Italian national of Moroccan descent, were shot dead by armed police eight minutes after the first emergency call.

Fake suicide belts

The three attackers were wearing fake suicide belts consisting of plastic water bottles wrapped in grey duct tape.

Haydon described the pink knives as “pretty unusual” and appealed for anyone with information about where they came from to contact police.

Police raided Redouane’s small residence on Tuesday and said he had been renting it since April. This was the safe house where the attack was planned, police said. In the residence, police found an English language copy of the Quran opened at a page describing martyrdom, pieces of cloth which appeared to match material wrapped around the petrol bombs and water bottles similar to those used in the fake suicide vests, police said. Luggage straps, plastic retractable craft knives and rolls of duct tape were also found.

Eighteen people have been arrested in connection with last week’s attack. All but five have been released. Searches are continuing.

Questions remain

The question remains how the men met and knew one another but police said Saturday they did not suspect a wider plot.

“It looks as if it is pretty much a contained plot involving the three of them, which is supported by the forensic evidence we’ve got back so far,” Haydon said.

Butt, who police consider the attack ringleader, had been on bail after being arrested for fraud in a case in October of last year, police said. He had also been repeatedly reported to police for violent behavior and trying to recruit young children to the Islamic State group as well as featuring in the documentary, “The Jihadis Next Door,” where he was seen next to a group of men unfurling a black-and-white flag scrawled with Arabic script and associated with the Islamic State group.

Warned by police

“There was no evidence uncovered of any attack-planning in relation to him,’ Haydon said.

Butt had been warned by police on two occasions — once for fraud in 2008 and once in 2010 for assault. Still, he did not have any criminal convictions.

Zaghba and Redouane lacked any criminal convictions or such warnings in Britain.

“From what I’m seeing, there is nothing that suggests at the moment that we got that wrong,” Haydon said, referring to Butt.

 
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Britain has been plunged into political chaos after a shock result in Thursday’s general election that saw the ruling Conservative Party’s majority wiped out.

Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap poll hoping to boost her mandate for talks on Britain’s exit from the European Union, due to start next week. But the Brexit timetable has been thrown into jeopardy as the opposition Labor Party saw its vote share soar.

May on Friday resisted calls to quit — calls that came even from senior figures in her party.

After visiting Queen Elizabeth II on Friday, a part of electoral procedure, May announced she would try to form a minority government supported by the Democratic Unionist Party, or DUP, from Northern Ireland.

“Our two parties have enjoyed a strong relationship over many years, and this gives me the confidence to believe that we will be able to work together in the interests of the whole United Kingdom,” May said.

Solid majority seen vital

The prime minister maintained that the Brexit talks would begin as planned next week, but with her party’s loss of 13 seats and its parliamentary majority, May will rely on the support of the DUP vote by vote. That is simply unsustainable, said political analyst Ian Dunt, author of the book Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now?

Minority governments in Britain “have very bad track records — they always get torn apart. The system doesn’t like it. When you’re doing that going into Brexit negotiations — some of the most brutal, arduous negotiations this country has ever faced — you don’t have a chance going up against it without really a strong majority.”

So is Britain’s EU exit now in doubt? No, Dunt said, but May’s vision of a so-called “hard Brexit” — in which the U.K. would most likely leave the single European Union market, take full control over its borders, strike new trade deals and apply laws within its own borders — has been rejected.

“She said, ‘Give me a mandate.’ And the answer was, ‘No.’ And that means we have to rethink everything, the entirety of the way we’re doing Brexit,” Dunt said.

The Conservatives’ losses were largely gains for the Labor opposition, which defied polls and predictions to gain 29 seats — a vindication for leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose grip on the party appears to have strengthened.

“We put forward our policies — strong and hopeful policies — and they’ve gained an amazing response and traction,” he said.

Youth vote energized

Among those was scrapping university tuition fees, which energized the youth vote. As one teaching student at the University of London told VOA, “I think most of us here were against Brexit last year. And I don’t feel like the current prime minister or, indeed, the Tory party, has any idea about what to do with Brexit at the moment.”

Elation in the Corbyn camp is tempered by electoral reality, said Dunt, making a comparison to last year’s U.S. presidential campaign.

“In a sort of Bernie Sanders way, he just created this sort of idealistic momentum around young people,” Dunt said. “He’s done something extraordinary. But he still doesn’t have that many seats.”

A year after the Brexit vote, Britain appears as divided as ever — between young and old, left and right, pro- and anti-Europe.

May’s campaign catchphrase of a “strong and stable government” has backfired. Britain looks set for months of political chaos.
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