Open Strong Anne Frank
Essay in need of a Strong Opening
Anne Frank, the Jewish girl whose diary and death in a Nazi concentration camp made her a symbol of the Holocaust, was allegedly baptized posthumously Saturday by a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to whistleblower Helen Radkey, a former member of the church. The ritual was conducted in a Mormon temple in the Dominican Republic, according to Radkey, a Salt Lake City researcher who investigates such incidents, which violate a 2010 pact between the Mormon Church and Jewish leaders.
Radkey discovered that Annelies Marie “Anne” Frank, who died at Bergen Belsen death camp in 1945 at age 15, was baptized by proxy on Saturday. Mormons have submitted versions of her name at least a dozen times for proxy rites and carried out the ritual at least nine times from 1989 to 1999. This time, Frank’s name was discovered in a database that can be used for proxy baptism — a separate process, according to a spokesman for the church. The database is open only to Mormons.
A screen shot of the database shows a page for Frank stating “completed” next to categories labeled “Baptism” and “Confirmation,” with the date Feb. 18, 2012, and the name of the Santo Domingo Dominican Republic Temple.
Mormon posthumous proxy baptisms for Holocaust victims or Jews who are not direct descendants of Mormons has continued, despite church vows to stop such practices. Negotiations between Mormon and Jewish leaders led to a 1995 agreement for the church to stop the posthumous baptism of all Jews, except in the case of direct ancestors of Mormons, but some Mormons have failed to adhere to the agreement.
The name of Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel was recently submitted to the restricted genealogy website as “ready” for posthumous proxy baptism, though the church says the rite is reserved for the deceased, and Wiesel is alive. Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, was among a group of Jewish leaders who campaigned against the practice and prompted the 2010 pact by which the Mormon Church promises to at least prevent proxy baptism requests for Holocaust victims.
Wiesel last week called on Republican presidential candidate and Mormon Mitt Romney, a former Mormon bishop who has donated millions to the church, to speak out about the practice. The Romney campaign did not immediately reply. The Frank case follows closely on an apology from the Mormon Church last week for recent posthumous baptisms of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal’s parents.
The latest baptism of Frank by proxy is especially egregious because she was an unmarried teenager who left no descendants. Mormon officials have stressed that in accordance with the agreements, church members are supposed to submit only the names of their own ancestors.
“The security of the names submissions process for posthumous rites must be questioned, in view of the rash of prominent Jewish Holocaust names that have recently appeared on Mormon temple rolls,” Radkey said about her latest find. “This one sailed straight through, with Anne’s correct name in their ‘secure’ database.”
Radkey said she expects, once word gets out, that church officials will scrub the records as they did with Wiesel and Weisenthal’s parents. The Mormon Church responded later Tuesday in a statement: “The Church keeps its word and is absolutely firm in its commitment to not accept the names of Holocaust victims for proxy baptism. While no system is foolproof in preventing the handful of individuals who are determined to falsify submissions we are committed to taking action against individual abusers who willfully violate the Church’s policy. Ritual baptism should be understood to be an offering based on love and respect; we regret when it becomes a source of contention.”
TASK
Exercise Specifics
In the Reply field below this post, write your strongest Opening Paragraph.
Your paragraph must contain a thesis sentence that clearly and boldly proclaims the claim you promise readers you will prove.
In addition, your Opening Paragraph:
- Will make strong, perhaps paradoxical claims.
- Will sum up a very strong argument your essay will make.
- Will NOT LOSE the argument.
- Will itself be an argument.
- Will be memorable.
- Will be debatable, demonstratable, illustratable.
- Will be a good example of itself.
Well, maybe it won’t accomplish all 7 goals, but the more the better!
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Counterintuitive Spring 2023 
Victims of the Holocaust, among other Jewish people, are being baptized without their consent by a church that they have no connection to. The Mormon church practices proxy baptisms on some Jewish people after they are already deceased; one of these victims is famous Holocaust survivor, Anne Frank. This horrifying and invasive practice has occurred for many years. More recently, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has been noted by the Mormon church as being “ready” for posthumous proxy baptism; baptism that occurs once the subject is dead, despite him never agreeing to that. Holocaust victims are believed to mostly be treated with respect and care in the modern world, but if churches are violating these people, who knows what other atrocities they are still facing to this day.
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Your first sentence is a good strong opener, Flatbread.
Your second loses some impact by repeating the phrase “other Jewish people” with “some Jewish people.” Could this be avoided? Anne Frank, sadly, was not a Holocaust “survivor.” She died in the camps.
Invasive practices are more horrifying if they don’t just “occur.” Someone must inflict them.
Maybe Elie Wiesel, instead of having been passively “noted as ready” could be “targeted” or “persecuted” by the church’s intentions.
The “are believed to be” is odd. Are they treated with respect or not? You dodge the obvious accusation that they are NOT AT ALL being treated with respect by the Mormon church.
and this is too late to retrieve that confusion.
You don’t need to imagine worse atrocities when your goal is to demonstrate the inappropriateness of the violation at hand.
Overall strong work, but, as always, I have way too much to say.
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To baptize people into a religion against their will, particularly when they have no means of resisting, constitutes nothing less than an egregious abuse of their religious liberty. And yet, the Mormon Church is doing exactly that to dead Jews, who perished in concentration camps during the Nazi holocaust of many minorities throughout their territories. Anne Frank, famous for writing a diary documenting her experience hiding from persecution before she was found and sent to her death, is among the deceased who was posthumously baptised by the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Jewish and Mormon groups have negotiated to end this practice, but some in the Mormon Church carry it on despite objections, and cracking down poses a challenge.
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Terrific first sentence, Chicken! It’s bold, direct, clear, and categorical. It defines the baptisms as egregious abuse. And condemns them.
This emphasizes the particular helplessness of the victims in a way that further accuses the perpetrators on picking on a truly sympathetic group.
This backs off where it doesn’t need to. The passive verbs “is among” “was baptised” lack vigor. She was, after all, captured again by the Mormons and dragged to the virtual baptismal font. Regarding tenses, when you say “was baptised” you suggest that they’ve stopped. Frank is just one of those who so far “have been baptised.”
There’s a lesson in our future called “Magical Dependency,” Chicken. You’ll find it useful to balance the less important clauses of your sentences against the more important. Here you want to emphasize that getting rid of the practice is unlikely. So: Despite the negotiations, or Even though some groups object, (time for the independent clause here) the more radical elements of the church seem determined to continue the outrage.
Helpful?
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Quite helpful, thank you.
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To give a nonconsensual baptism to someone who does not have the agency to voice personal opinion is defying their religious freedom. Anne Frank, a symbolic figure among the millions of lives lost during the Holocaust, was unjustly baptized by the Mormon Church— on nine separate occasions. Anne Frank was devoted to Judaism and sadly lost her life staying a devoted Jew, at the age of 15. The Mormon Church, on multiple occasions, baptized Frank, despite the fact that Anne Frank did not leave any descendants to voice her will. This practice is known as posthumous proxy baptism. Posthumous proxy baptism is baptizing deceased non-Mormons to allow them a chance to enter heaven. There has been conflict between Mormons and Jews, though, coming to the agreement to end this practice. Despite coming to a conclusion, some Mormon groups still carry out this practice, defying an individual’s religious freedom.
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This starts and ends strong, King, and loses its way in the middle. The opening is stellar. The “nonconsensual” is perfect, and the lack of “agency to deny” the rite is also just right.
Along the way you give us other good touches
—The “symbolic figure” gives her millions of defenders but also makes her a choice target for the believers.
—Your “on nine separate occasions” belays any doubt that the act was casual or thoughtless.
—That a 14-year-old left no descendants should give us a chill, but we would have to be reminded just how young she was.
Whenever a sentence begins with the same word or phrase (posthumous proxy baptism) that ended the previous sentence, JOIN those sentences.
So much good work, and then the whimper. “There has been a conflict” followed by “coming to an agreement” followed by “coming to a conclusion,” followed by “still carry out this practice.” All so abstract after the passion and outrage of the opening.
You rally at the very end with “defying an individual’s religious freedom,” but by then the coffee’s cold.
Overall quite nice.
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Forcing individuals into a religious belief system through posthumous proxy baptisms, especially when they are unable to object or resist, represents a severe violation of their religious freedom. The recent revelation that Anne Frank was allegedly posthumously baptized by a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has once again raised concerns over the controversial practice of proxy baptisms for Holocaust victims and Jews who are not direct descendants of Mormons. Despite agreements and promises made by the church, Mormons have continued to submit names of Holocaust victims and Jewish leaders for posthumous proxy baptisms, which violates the Jewish tradition and their beliefs. The practice of posthumous proxy baptisms by the Mormon Church is unethical and disrespectful to the memory and beliefs of Holocaust victims and Jewish people.
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Holocaust victims are being baptized against their will. In this instance, they are being baptized into a church with which they have no connection in the slightest. In addition to Anne Frank, who is well-known for her diary as she wrote her experiences in hiding from the persecution Jews faced during the Holocaust, many other Jews were forcibly baptized. Jewish and Mormon practices have sharply disagreed over this, and they have reached a consensus on the matter. In spite of this, since some members of the Mormon community still carry out this practice, some people have been deprived of their right to exercise their religion as a result.
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Victims of the Holocaust continue to be disrespected by those who do not share their beliefs, even after they have passed on. Victims of the Holocaust who have died in somewhat recent years, are receiving nonconsensual baptisms by churches that do not share the same religion or value system as they do. One example of this is a young woman we most likely all know, named Anne Frank. Anne Frank was 15 years old when she died in the Holocaust due to her loyalties to Judaism. A Mormon church decided to baptize Anne Frank on multiple occasions, with no decedents to put a stop to this unethical practice. This doing is known as a posthumous proxy baptism, and it is more common than we think. So common that people who are of Jewish religion are trying to come to an agreement with Mormons and Mormon churches to stop preforming posthumous proxy baptisms on Jews who have already passed on and have no say in what and what cannot be done to their bodies. But the Mormon churches continue to disobey this agreement and commit this unlawful act that contradicts the entire idea of religious freedom.
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Jewish people and those who were in the holocaust are forcibly being baptized by a church in which they have no relationship with and who neither share the same beliefs nor religions.
The Mormon church exercises proxy baptisms for Jews who have already died. Anna Frank, the brave Jewish girl who died after writing a famous diary about her hiding from the Nazis, has been targeted and used in these practices. One of the latest baptisms of Anne Frank was outrageously cruel because she was a teenager who had died at the age of 15. Churches are failing to respect the Jews and those involved in the holocaust and the outcome of these baptisms is just horrific.
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People who were subject to the Holocaust continue to be violated even after death by religious parties not of the same religion. Members of the Mormon churches are forcibly baptizing those who were affected by the holocaust. After discovering that Anne Frank had been baptized at a secret location in a Mormon temple in the Dominican Republic, by whom the religious party had no relation with what she and other Jews had believed. After this discovery unravelled, many people saw that other Jewish people that had died or were even alive are either on the list for being baptized. Activist leaders and other public figures like Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel are fighting to get clarity/end these rituals, their goal is to end secret baptisms of people who don’t follow the religion by a party that is keeping secrets and provide no statement for their doings. A debate that could never see an ending between the Jewish community and the Mormon churches that dehumanize victims even after death.
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Holocaust victims died for their religion and some religious organizations are trying to take that important part of them away. The Mormon faith is currently baptizing deceased people who were not a part of their religion through proxy. One of the most important and perhaps disturbing baptism is that of Anne Frank. She is famous for documenting the time she spent while hiding from the Nazi’s before she was eventually captured and killed due to her religion. Despite many negotiations between Jewish leaders and the Mormon church that originally put an end to this practice, it is still occurring against the wishes of the deceased.
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The Mormon Church is performing posthumous proxy baptisms on Holocaust Victims who are not involved in the Mormon faith whatsoever, disrespecting the memories of those who have perished in the concentration camps and their Jewish faith. It has recently been discovered that a Mormon Church posthumously baptized Anne Frank, a notable writer and deceased victim of the Holocaust with no Mormon ancestors to support the Church’s reasoning to baptize her. She is not the only Jewish person subjected to this contempt. Simon Wiesenthal’s parents and Elie Wiesel have also fallen victim to this practice, despite the Church’s promise to Jewish leaders that they will not baptize Holocaust victims. These violations have caused issues regarding the morality of the Mormon Church.
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Due to the lack of respect for other religions, the Mormon church cannot seem to stop baptizing deceased jewish people. Their most recent baptism of Anne Frank, the teenage journalist who died during the Holocaust 80 years ago, has shed light on their widespread baptisms of Holocaust victims. Mormonism allows baptisms to be carried out by proxy, with the names of the new prospects being uploaded onto their online database next to the word “completed”. What’s shadier is the names on the database are only accessible to mormons, and only see the light of day when the occasional whistleblower makes their rounds. Mormon church officials ensure that they are not responsible for the baptisms, and will deal with the perpetrators. However, this is not their first rodeo, as there were apparently 9 separate baptisms of Anne Frank in the 1990’s. This issue has persisted after multiple pacts with several Jewish leaders, proving the problem to be structural rather than personal. The ability to preform proxy baptisms fundamentally proves a lack of respect for the beliefs of others. I have no doubt that these baptisms will continue unless they change their policy on induction.
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The non-consented act of posthumous Mormon baptisms being done on Jewish Holocaust victims is not only egregious but deeply disrespectful to the lives of those innocent martyrs. The majority of those who lost their lives during the Holocaust did so as a consequence of their Jewish faith. Even through the threat of persecution, these individuals remained faithful to their beliefs. In addition to the clear unethical nature of forcing any religion on someone against their will, stripping the Jewish faith from Holocaust victims means stripping them of their very identity, humanity, and cause of martyr-hood. While I’m sure it is “well-intentioned” inside the ignorance of these Mormon groups, the action of posthumous baptism is, to my mind, reminiscent of the very identity-stripping and ideology-forcing practices of the Nazi regime.
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This is brilliant and flawed, Sinatraman. So much good thinking is undermined by passive constructions.
—Your Sentence Skeleton: The act is egregious and disrespectful.
—This lets your villain off the hook completely.
—Passive grants permission; active prosecutes.
—Your primary verb isn’t technically passive (it’s not much better: to be), but your secondary verb, “being done,” is.
—Baptisms are being done.
—Can you put the Mormons in charge of this disrespect?
—Your Sentence Skeleton: The majority lost.
—Here it might be a distraction to nail the perpetrators, but . . .
—”Even the murder of 6 million in the Holocaust has not intimidated Jews to declare their faith.”
—Your Sentence Skeleton: Despite the nature of forcing, stripping means stripping.
—Can a religion be forced on someone harmonious with their will?
—Truly admirable thought. Phrasing can bring it home.
—If the act is unforgivable, call it out. Mitigate during the sentencing phase of the trial, not here, where you are still prosecuting.
—Brilliant parallel worthy of proper staging.
—Your certainty is not required. Your declaration of your certainty even less.
—It’s really amusing that the mitigation is that they’re stupid.
—I see you’re “all in” on the Nazi/Mormon parallel. It’s really smart. And scary because of its truth. You can own it with active constructions, or you can distance yourself, as you’ve tried to do, with qualified passive claims. Your call, but there’s no downside to going all-in. This is a classroom exercise, not a campaign speech. Offend the offensive.
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Very insightful feedback, I recognize now how I was obviously distancing myself from the claim I was arguing, perhaps unconsciously out of caution not to offend. I agree though, bold topics deserve bold claims.
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Anne Frank, a symbol of the holocaust because of her diary where she documented her life during the holocaust was wrongfully baptized after her death by the church of Jesus Christ. The baptism was held in a Mormon church. At age 15 she died at the Bergen Belsen death camp in 1945.This violated a pact made between the Mormon Church and jewish leaders. Mormons and jews agree to not practice such visuals except for those who are ancestors. Helen Radkey, a former member of the church of Jesus Christ, looked into the incident. Anne Frank was not the only Jew that the Mormons tried to baptize after death. They attempted to baptize many holocaust victims. Mormons have practiced such rituals for Anne Frank at least nine times. The church then made a statement that they would keep their word and are “absolutely firm in its commitment to not accept the names of Holocaust victims for proxy baptism”. There is no way to ensure that they will keep this promise even in their private practice.
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A well known girl, Anne Frank, known for being a symbol of the holocaust. Her diary shared her life during the holocaust. Although she’s a big part of our history she was not respected after her death. She was baptized after her death by a citizen from a church of Jesus Christ. It’s wrong that they did this, there was no consent given so it shouldn’t of been done. Many people went through the same as Anne Frank, unfortunately. The Jews knew what was going on but they wouldn’t let it strip them away from their religion. The baptizing went against an agreement made by both the Mormon church and the Jewish leaders.
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Holocaust victims continue to be disrespected by baptism by proxy in Mormon churches. Anne Frank, a notable Jewish girl during the holocaust era has been a victim of these baptisms at least a dozen times. At only 15 years old she died at Bergen Belsen death camp in 1945. In 1995 negotiations between Mormon and Jewish leaders led to an agreement for Mormon churches to stop the post-death baptism of all Jews unless they were direct Mormon relatives. Some Mormons failed to adhere to those terms. Between 1989 – 1999 they continued to use Anne Frank’s name in the disrespectful way of baptism by proxy even after the negotiations. The Mormon church claims that the system is not being used the way it should be and that they regret the way the system is being used.
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The invasion and intrusion of performing a procedural, proxy baptism on deceased, Jewish Holocaust victims is a clear, bold action and statement of utter disrespect. These undertakings are being accomplished by the Mormon Church and its members of the Church of Latter-day Saints. Disturbing these souls, who were not only brutalized in concentration camps, but also dehumanized from their graves, is an assault on the history of the Jewish community and the Holocaust. One of the most well-known, Holocaust survivors and certainly one of the strongest young women in history, Anne Frank, is also part of the most recently, posthumously baptized by the Mormon Church. Frank, and her infamous diary containing her experiences from this time period, is a powerful and memorable symbol of the Holocaust. Even though the Mormon Church vows to their mission of “love and respect,” it has failed this pledge. Even though the Church professes they do not accept Holocaust victim names, it has failed this covenant.
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The Mormons have been conducting nonconsensual baptism performances on deceased Jewish Holocaust victims. Not only does this take away any say these individuals have on these practices but it also disregards their religious freedom as human beings. One of these victims is the famous Anne Frank, a faithful Jew until the very end who wrote a diary about her experience in the Holocaust. At the age of 15 years old, she died at a concentration camp to then later be baptized at a Mormon church despite not having any descendants. The Mormons continue to violate these individuals’ religion with these unethical practices even after the agreement they had with Jewish Leaders. Allowing the Mormon Church to continue these immoral actions on behalf of these victims, takes away any religious freedom these people had and died for.
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