POLITICS

Oh, It Can Definitely Happen Here

All it takes is for good people to do nothing

Michelle Teheux
Rome Magazine
Published in
6 min readOct 6, 2024

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I started doubting humanity in grade school when I first read Anne Frank’s diary and learned what happened to her.

“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart,” Anne famously said. It’s worth noting she said that before they threw her into a concentration camp. I’ve always wondered whether she revised that belief when she was dying at Bergen-Belsen.

At about the same time I was reading Anne’s diary, a cousin gave me an old book called The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss. In it, the author recounts her experience of going into hiding as a young Jewish girl during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.

Each time the Nazis came to search the home of the Dutch farm family who took them in, Johanna — called Annie in the book — and her sister had to quickly retreat to a tiny space behind a false wall inside a closet. Everyone knew what would happen if they were found.

Those scenes left a deep impression on me

Ever since, I’ve wished for a secret hiding place of my own. Everywhere I’ve lived, I’ve thought of how I might construct a hidden space, just in case.

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Michelle Teheux
Rome Magazine

Lover of literature. Former newspaper editor. Fascinated by everything. Contact: michelleteheux@gmail.com. To buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/michelleteheux