Plan B Forum

Justin Bieber has caused outrage with his message in a guestbook at the Anne Frank Museum, saying he hoped the Holocaust victim would have been a fan.

The 19-year-old pop idol wrote: "Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber."

It has provoked fierce online criticism of the Canadian singer, who is in Amsterdam as part of a tour.

The museum defended the star but added his comment "wasn't very sensible".

The Canadian singer's comment was quoted on the Anne Frank House Facebook page following his visit on Friday evening.

Anne Frank's diary, written during the two years the teenager and her family hid from the Nazis in occupied Amsterdam, made her a symbol of the suffering of Jews during World War II.

The house has been turned into a museum dedicated to the young girl, who died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945 aged 15.

The suggestion that had she lived today, the teenager would have been a "belieber" - a term used by his devoted fans to describe themselves - generated thousands of horrified responses on social networking websites.

"Just saw what Justin Bieber wrote in the Anne Frank Museum guestbook. Absolutely disgusted," read one tweet.

"Way to turn an inspiring moment into something about yourself," read another.

Econoline wrote:Given the depths of the vast oceans of stupidity in the world, I somehow doubt whether this particular teenaged twit is the only person ever to have written something stupid in the museum guestbook. The real question this raises is why anyone would give any more importance to Bieber's comments than to those of, say, Mr.&Mrs. Jimmy Bob Turdlump of West Buttfuck, Mississippi.

rubato wrote:I think, in his own inarticulate way, he was trying to say that he would hope that she would have liked him had they met.

A clumsy idea expressed poorly. He's a dumb teenager after all.

yrs,
rubato

Even at that age he should have realised the significance of Anne Frank's symbolic meaning on a visit to her home/museum.

dales wrote:He's Canadian.

Anne Frank tree planted at Sonoma State

Carolyn Jones

Six-thousand miles and 70 years from the darkest hours of World War II, in a sunny grove in Rohnert Park on Sunday afternoon, Anne Frank's dream took root.

In a simple ceremony on campus, staff at Sonoma State University planted a chestnut sapling from the stately tree that the Holocaust diarist gazed upon, took inspiration from and wrote about while hiding with her family in an Amsterdam attic from 1940 to 1942.

"I've been waiting a long time for this," said Lillian Judd, 90, a Holocaust survivor who now lives in Santa Rosa and was one of several hundred who attended the tree planting. "I'm thrilled to see it. This keeps it alive, something else that makes us remember the Holocaust."

The tree, one of 11 such saplings in the United States, originated from the chestnut that transfixed Frank for two years while she and her family hid from the Nazis. She could see the tree from a small window, and it became to her a symbol of hope, freedom, beauty and normalcy.

That tree died in an ice storm in 2010, but the Anne Frank Foundation in New York arranged for 11 offshoots to be planted in the United States. The foundation selected Sonoma State because of its in-depth Holocaust curriculum, which includes studies of other genocides and the origins of hatred and prejudice.

"We hope this tree serves as an inspiration, particularly to our students, and a reminder of the wonderful, essential parts of life that Anne Frank looked for," said Ruben Armiñana, Sonoma State president.

"Her dream is being reborn with saplings all over the world," he said, adding, "although we think we have the tallest and prettiest."

The campus just might. The sapling is a strapping 4 feet tall, with full green foliage. Staff planted it in a clearing by a lake, near simple, understated sculptures commemorating other genocides and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The chestnut is expected to grow 100 feet tall and live at least 150 years.

Its journey to California was not an easy one. The tree, which arrived a bare stick in a UPS box, had to be quarantined for three years and tested for 28 diseases. Gardeners at Sonoma State kept it in a greenhouse on campus and tended to it daily.

Jim Silva, a campus gardener, was among the tree tenders. For three years, he hand-watered it daily and monitored every inch of growth.

"It wasn't easy," he said. "It was a little nerve-racking. Every time it lost a few leaves I'd want to call the state pathologist. I'm just relieved to see it get in the ground."

His secret to keeping the tree healthy and happy: fish emulsion.

Helena Foster, a Holocaust survivor from Oakland, said a tree is the perfect way to remember Anne Frank and the horrific events of World War II.

In fact, Foster donated 18 other trees to Sonoma State in connection with the Anne Frank sapling project. Eighteen, in Hebrew, means "life," she said.

"Chestnuts - they are all around Poland and Europe. They are very close to my heart," she said. "They are a symbol of life."


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/A ... z2QZMp2Ys4

dales wrote:Removed by dales due to stupid insensitivity.

Guinevere wrote:

Econoline wrote:Given the depths of the vast oceans of stupidity in the world, I somehow doubt whether this particular teenaged twit is the only person ever to have written something stupid in the museum guestbook. The real question this raises is why anyone would give any more importance to Bieber's comments than to those of, say, Mr.&Mrs. Jimmy Bob Turdlump of West Buttfuck, Mississippi.

Exactly. A self-obsessed teenager, news at 11....