The “Anne Frank” Before “Anne Frank”
Mary Berg, is a name that people might have heard of before, but she is one of those survivors that didn’t wish to discuss her famous diary, that was published in 1945.
In my short film The Autistic Diarist, set to start shooting in March next year, I have a couple of scenes where in the film, the character, whose also name is Kate, tries to research Mary Berg.
Mary was born Miriam Wattenberg, but I guess Americanized her name to Mary Berg when she arrived to the United States in 1944. Mary is known for her diary that was published in 1945, but it was out of print in 1950. But, the funny thing is that it resurfaced in 2006, it became a conversation that she wanted nothing to do with. There are so many questions about Mary Berg, that in the film, is discussed. What happened here?
What made her want to disappear and pull an Deanna Durbin (if you know, you know) and not join in the conversation about her life? Why wasn’t she excited about the reissuing of her diary in 2006? There’s so much to unpack here. According to sources, she didn’t republish her diary and let it go out of print, but her translator and publisher, Samuel L. Shneiderman, managed to have the copyright to the diary, and that’s why it was republished in 2006. This might have caused an issue though, because, Samuel L. Shneiderman, was dead in 1996, so how could it have been republished? This is a big question that opens up another conversation. Mary could have stopped this, but she didn’t? How did they have the copyright to something that SHE WROTE? Did she hand over the rights to her diary? It’s probably a complicated story, but there is so much to unpack here. I have not been able to find any court cases where she sued for not publishing the diary. The diary was republished by OneWorld Publications, which still is thriving today. According to a 2014 article, written by MIKE ARGENTO, said this:
“Over the years, several people attempted to convince her to get her diary back into print, saying it was an important historical document. She declined. In the mid-1990s, when a Polish edition was published, a theater was planning to stage a dramatic reading and invited Mary Berg to attend. Responding through friends, The New York Times reported, she declined.
In 1995, Susan Pentlin, a professor of modern languages at the University of Central Missouri, approached Berg about republishing her diary. Pentlin, who had a particular interest in Holocaust literature and who taught Berg’s book in her classes, had been in touch with Shneiderman, who then held the rights to the book. Shneiderman put Pentlin in touch with Berg.
Berg, according to Pentlin’s husband, Floyd, “basically told my wife to buzz off.”
Pentlin, who died last Christmas of a heart attack, previously told the Jewish news website The Tablet that when she contacted Berg about republishing her diary in 1992, Berg responded bitterly.
“Instead of continuing to milk the Jewish Holocaust to its limits,” she wrote to Pentlin, “do go and make a difference in all those Holocausts taking place right now in Bosnia or Chechin. Don’t tell me this is different.”
Pentlin went ahead and ushered in a new edition of Mary Berg’s diary in 2007. Shneiderman’s heirs held the rights to the book and the author’s permission was unnecessary.
In the introduction to the new edition, the professor wrote, “It is not known if she found happiness in her adult years. We can only hope that she was able to make a life for herself in the post-war world and find solace from her past memories.”
It’s really a shame that Mary Berg didn’t leave a good impression with people, especially when they wanted to keep her legacy alive, but I guess, like Deanna Durbin, she didn’t want to be defined by her past. It’s a shame that she never wanted to be remembered? It really is.
The book was republished again in October of 2013, a few months after Berg died, and I’m sure they were waiting on her to die so they could do this, without any legal trouble. Berg’s photo only appears once in the book and the rest are just fillers. Sadly, the photos of Mary did not surface until a year after she died. A man named , Glen Coghill bought a photo album, a folder of loose photographs and a scrapbook at the estate sale. He had known Mary Pentin, but didn’t know that he knew Mary Berg, until he looked at the scrapbook and said to himself “Holy God.” It’s amazing that even Mary’s neighbors didn’t know she was a Holocaust survivor and she planned to keep it that way.
It’s amazing that I found why I can’t find an obit for Mary Berg- it’s because she didn’t have one. She told her family not to publish one.
Coghil wanted to see if the items could be donated to the museum and according to MIKE ARGENTO of the Washington Times, he said this:
“The scrapbook is now the property of the National Holocaust Memorial Museum. Coghill, who was hoping it would find a proper home, a museum or collection where it would be publicly available and appreciated, had sent it to Doyle New York, a high-end auction house. After The New York Times did a story about the sale, Doyle canceled the auction and brokered a sale to the holocaust museum for an undisclosed price. (Doyle had previously estimated the value of the scrapbook at between $4,000 and $6,000, the Times reported.)”- Now reading this, I am disgusted, for one thing, a musuem should NEVER HAVE TO PAY for a Holocaust item, especially if it’s being donated to them. NEVER. That is disgusting, and it makes me sick that the USHMM, the only way they could get these items, is that they paid for it, when they should have gotten them for FREE.
She really lived like Deanna Durbin (if you know, you know), to the point of almost accuracy. She didn’t like the press, and she kept who she really was a secrect. Her kids, are probably going to be impossible to find, and interview, for I’m sure she didn’t tell them anything.
In my film, you’ll see all the sides of research I have done this woman, and I’m still not done researching her.
Get your copy of her diary now, before it goes out of print forever.
