The Diary of Anne Frank: A Play

Once both families have arrived safely at the Annex, Peter immediately sets to work ripping off the yellow Star of David badge that all Jews are required to wear sewn onto all their shirts, dresses, and jackets to identify them as Jewish. While watching Peter remove the badge, Anne’s immediate reaction is to be concerned that Peter will be in trouble if he’s caught on the street. She hasn’t quite internalized the idea that none of them will be out on the street for a very long time. The irony of the badges is that their use by Nazis to recognize Jews only demonstrates that Jewishness isn’t visible. The Third Reich racialized Jewishness as a threat to their goals of creating a racially “pure” Germany with an Aryan population. Their antisemitic propaganda called Jews racially inferior, even less than human, claiming that their genes were dangerous. Nazi scientists attempted to find definitive physical markers of Jewishness and were unsuccessful, but they still disseminated propaganda that showed stereotypes associated with the appearance of Jewish people as identifiable characteristics. They enforced the Jewish star badge because neither the Nazis nor the populace could identify Jewish people without them.