Claire Mattes and Sam Livoti met while working at the Anne Frank Center at the University of South Carolina. Mattes was a student at USC while volunteering as a docent at the Center where Livoti continues her work there as an education specialist.
In 2024, the two sat down with StoryCorps to discuss the impact of the book The Diary of Anne Frank. Livoti begins the conversation by explaining how the book can be a helpful starting point for learning about World War II and the Holocaust.
TRANSCRIPT:
Livoti: It's like a baseline, like, before you get into….I mean, there's so much you could talk about with the Holocaust and World War II.
Mattes: Yeah.
Livoti: But I guess she's a starting point--
Mattes: Oh, yeah.
Livoti: --for so many. And what I love about her diary is that we read it when we're her age. It's one of the only times we read something written by a peer at school. And while her story isn't the typical story, it's pretty unusual. It's still a great starting point because of what she talks about. She talks about the Holocaust and World II.
Mattes: And being a kid at the same time.
Livoti: Yeah, being a kid. She's a child.
Mattes: That was, like, the biggest thing for me when I was reading her diary is how funny she was, and how similar she was to my friends at school and the things we would talk about and the boyfriends and all of those, you know, wanting to be an actress and I think humanizing her. I always tell people at the end of my tour, she represents so much more than herself. She represents millions of children back then, and today. She represents kids who are not listened to in that way. I feel like kids knowing that there was a other kid that impactful is big for them. Cause, you know, some children grow up not really thinking they're that smart or their opinions don't matter. And, like, Ann is the perfect example of why that's not true, you know?
Livoti: Yeah, we did a refugee summer camp last year, and then we did it again this February. So, we had refugee kids from Afghanistan come in. I think one was from Colombia and then another from Ukraine. Some of them were fleeing terrorist organizations and war in the Ukraine. And they related to Anne so much. One of the students started crying and said, “I am Anne Frank,” because it was so emotional. But there are kids just like her. And they were shocked to see and read about someone who went through something that they did in a similar way. And they moved to the US and now they're learning to assimilate to American culture. And we wanted to highlight their stories.
Mattes: What lessons has your work life taught you?
Livoti: Having to balance the good and the--
Mattes: Oh, yeah.
Livoti: --and the sad. For me, that's like, my biggest thing, especially right now, like, doing…like, sometimes I'll do four or five tours a day.
Mattes: Oh, that does get hard to talk about.
Livoti: Yeah, just talking about it every day gets…it's sad. But, yeah, balancing is a lesson that I'm learning.
Mattes: Something I didn't expect to learn is the extent to which people don't know about certain things and how it's okay. I remember I had, like, four students we had one semester, which wasn't that many, but four in a semester didn't know that Anne had died. And I never forgot that. I was like, and not that I wanted to place the blame on them, but I was like, “How did you not know that?” And then I got to thinking about disparities, like, in education and how some schools aren't funded as well and don't have access to these things to learn, and kids don't get to read Anne's diary. And that's the kids who need to the most. So, that was my biggest lesson, is just the importance of finding those kids and teaching them that, and not coming off as like, “Oh, you don't know this?” Rather, like, “Let me tell you about this. This is important,” you know? But I think it was something I just didn't expect. And I'm glad I learned it. So, I always think that's the first step, is just finding where that education needs to start.
Livoti: Yeah.
