Anne Frank Trust scolds Roger Waters for comparing Frank to Shireen Abu Akleh

Pink Floyd founding member Roger Waters onstage in Berlin in 2013. He’s performed for years in the costume with the red armband resembling a Nazi uniform. Photo by ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images

By Beth Harpaz June 9, 2023

A London-based organization that uses Anne Frank’s life to challenge prejudice scolded former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters for juxtaposing Frank’s name with Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh’s during a concert in Germany. 

The Anne Frank Trust quoted the first line of Pink Floyd’s anti-fascist anthem “The Wall” in a tweet, saying: “‘We don’t need no education,’ but clearly Roger Waters needs educating about prejudice and antisemitism. It is wildly inappropriate to misuse Anne Frank’s legacy. Here at the Anne Frank Trust, our young people learn from Anne Frank and the Holocaust, empowering them to challenge prejudice. We invite Roger to meet with us and do the same.”

Concertgoers who saw Waters perform in Berlin in May tweeted photos of Abu Akleh and Frank’s names being projected onto large screens. Under Abu Akleh’s name, the location of her death was listed as “Jenin, Palestine,” her crime as “Being Palestinian” and sentence as “death.” Under Frank’s name, the location of her death was listed as the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp while her crime was listed as “Being Jewish” and the sentence also death.  

Rogers has defended the concert act, saying on social media that it is “quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms.” 

Abu Akleh was killed while covering an Israeli military raid in the West Bank last year.  Various investigations concluded that she was shot by a member of the Israel Defense Forces but Israeli authorities deny that she was intentionally targeted. 

Frank is the Holocaust’s most famous victim. Her story is widely known thanks to the posthumous publication of her diary describing her family’s years in hiding during World War II. She was deported in 1944 to Auschwitz after a raid on the secret annex in Amsterdam where they were hiding. She died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen at age 15. 

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