Anne Frank Center’s Steven Goldstein Reacts Angrily To Wikipedia Edits

Steven Goldstein

Following my previous two posts on the Anne Frank Center and how it was misrepresenting itself, someone (not me) edited its Wikipedia page to reflect the lies I had exposed, adding this to the History of the Organization section:

Although at one time the Center claimed, on its website, to have been founded by Anne Frank’s father Otto Frank, as of April 2017, it no longer makes that claim. [1] [9] It has variously claimed to have been founded by Mr. Frank in 1959 and in 1977.[10] In 1977, Mr. Frank would have been 88 years old and living in Basel, Switzerland. [11][12] The Center does not appear to have any connection to the Anne Frank Fonds. [13]

They also changed this:

The organization’s choice of “Mutual Respect” for its expanded name was inspired by Otto Frank, who founded the organization to help “build a world based on equal rights and mutual respect.

To this:

The organization’s choice of “Mutual Respect” for its expanded name was inspired by Otto Frank, although the name change occured 36 years after Mr. Frank’s death.

Steve Goldstein, the center’s executive director, has reacted furiously, removing the edits and leaving this comment:

This is Steven Goldstein, Executive Director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect. Someone made hostile and actionable changes to our Wikipedia page that we took out in this edit.

But he also removed the following part of the History section, including references to Otto Frank.

Other Anne Frank organizations include the museum, Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, which opened in 1960; and the charitable foundation founded by Otto Frank in 1963, the Anne Frank Fonds in Basel, Switzerland.

From 1942 to 1944, Anne, her sister Margot and their parents Otto and Edith hid in a secret annex at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, along with four other Jews. The Nazis, acting on an anonymous tip, found all eight in 1944, and would kill all but Otto. Anne died in 1945 at age 15 at the Bergen-Belsenconcentration camp.

Earlier in his life, Otto Frank lived in the United States. At age 19, he came to New York to do an apprenticeship at Macy’s before he returned home to Germany. After Anne died, he realized even more the importance of the American market in preserving Anne’s legacy. The success of 1955 Broadway play, The Diary of Anne Frank had made Anne’s diary – the book – an international sensation. Four years later, he established the Anne Frank organization in the United States.

This all seems to confirm to me that, despite Goldstein’s indignation, they were lying all along.

Good job on the Wikipedia edits, Steve, correcting the lies I exposed. Although it looks like someone added them back in.

And you might want to also change the information on your website, which is still false.

Update: At some point after my posts, Goldstein made his Twitter account private:

I think I struck a nerve.

Update: Yep, I did.

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