I did not visit Auschwitz in my youth, because when I lived in West Berlin, the iron curtain was a pretty significant obstacle. I did, however, visit concentration camp sites in Germany, and the experiences were wrenching and spiritually agonizing.

Just a few years later, I moved to New York City where I met my life partner, a Jewish man whose mother was Polish. I became close friends with a Jewish woman from Austria who suffered unspeakable horrors during the Holocaust.

I can't imagine why on Earth anyone would want to talk about Anne Frank in the context of white privilege. That's a meaningless conversation given the place and time where she lived.

It's bad enough that her diaries are routinely hijacked by the forces of "positivity," taken out of context to mean things Anne certainly did not mean.

But the white privilege thing is beyond the pale.