Om Book Shop, an apparently controversial bookstore in Delhi, sparked outrage on the Internet after it had set up The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank alongside Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and Mahatma Gandhi’s The Story of My Experiments with Truth. This raised many people into a quagmire of not knowing how one could compare these highly contradictory works of literature.
The incident came out when visitor Himanish Ganjoo shared an image on X, formerly known as Twitter with the post: “Only in India.” The post received massive following with people venting away and debating whether the books told the theme of resistance, peace, and hatred as one would say.
Only in India pic.twitter.com/45MQo13SeH
— Himanish Ganjoo (@hganjoo_153) December 24, 2024
Netizens’ Response One of the users says, “At least they put My Experiment with Truth in the middle. I remember some dude putting Anne Frank and Mein Kampf side-by-side.” Another user asks, “Can the stories of peace, resilience, and hatred coexist on the same shelf without challenging our understanding of history?”
A more philosophical perspective came from another user: “Maybe they’re meant to be read together for a clearer understanding of the era’s complexities.” But most users were critical and pointed out the insensitivity of the store. “This shows a lack of understanding of history. It feels disrespectful,” said one user.
Books of Historical Relevance Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl stands as one of the most impactful Holocaust memoirs, written during the period of hiding from the Nazi persecutors. Published for the first time in 1947, it has been translated into more than 70 languages and sold over 30 million copies worldwide.
Mein Kampf of Hitler has a much darker legacy. According to Foreign Policy magazine, this manifesto was considered very controversial and had sold about 12 million copies at the peak of Nazi rule.
