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Anne Frank “revisionist” fined

A former regional president of the far-right Party of Nationally Oriented Swiss has been fined just over SFr10,000 ($9,500) for claiming Anne Frank’s diary was a fake.

In June 2009 the 22-year-old ex-leader of the Basel branch of the extremist party had written an article called “The lies around Anne Frank”, in which he branded the diary of the young Jewish girl a “historical lie”.

The young man has been fined for racial discrimination.

He referred to an article published in 1980 in the German news magazine Der Spiegel, which questioned the authenticity of the diary.

The Spiegel article mentioned an expert’s report by the German Federal Criminal Police. The same authority led an investigation in 2006 which cleared all doubts on the diary’s authenticity.

The president of the Basel court said the accused had infringed the federal law against racism and his assertions were like a slap in the face of the victims.

Anne Frank died aged 15 in March 1945 in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, having lived most of her life in Amsterdam. From July 1942 to August 1944 she and her family lived in hiding in a secret annex. Anne kept a diary, which was found and published after her death.

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