21st December Anne and Samantha Day

Anne and Samantha Day, celebrated on June 20 and December 21 every year, is a special tribute to celebrate both Anne Frank and Samantha Smith. Anne and Samantha Day takes place twice a year on the summer solstice and the winter solstice. This day is meant to let the world know about the pain, suffering, uproars, and revolution brought by these young women.

Who were Anne and Samantha? What was their contribution to the world?

Anne Frank was a Jewish girl whose writings in her diary — “The Diary of a Young Jewish Girl” — impacted generations. Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on June 12, 1929, to Otto and Ruth Frank. The Frank family fled Nazi Germany and settled in Amsterdam, Netherlands. However, they were still not safe as the Nazis invaded Amsterdam in 1942 and the family needed to go into hiding behind a wall. Here she wrote her diary. Unfortunately the family was betrayed and Anne's father was the only family member who survived. He later found her diary.

Samantha Reed Smith was the daughter of  a social worker, Jane Goshorn Smith. She was born on June 29, 1972. When she was only ten years old, she wrote a letter to Yuri Andropov, who was the leader of the Soviet Union. She wanted to understand the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union.

In July 1983 Smith and her family spent two weeks in the Soviet Union, visiting Moscow, Leningrad, and Artek, a children’s camp on the Black Sea. After returning home, she gave numerous television interviews. In a December 1983 speech at the International Children’s Symposium in Kobe, Japan, she suggested that U.S. and Soviet leaders exchange granddaughters for two weeks every year, because a leader would not want to bomb a country that “his granddaughter was visiting.” On August 25, 1985, Smith and her father, Arthur were killed in a commuter plane crash.

These girls were young but very aware of the world they were living in just like so many of the young people today who also are very unhappy about what is happening in the world especially in relationship to the current conflicts and the number of civilian casualties.

Anne Frank and Samantha Smith deserve our recognition as positive influences on schoolchildren. Both of them understood that no matter how difficult the current circumstances are, it is important to strive towards a peaceful future for all nations.

What to do to celebrate this day? Learn more about the two girls, be inspired to do something that involves writing or read about conflict and how it affects children.

You could start with books such as these:

• Anne Frank  by Isabel Sanchez Vegara

• Behind the Bookcase by Barbara Lowell

• The Woman who Rescued Anne's Diary  by Meet Pincus

• Anne Frank by Josephine Poole

• America's Youngest Ambassador  by Lena Nelson (This is not a book for children but it certainly gives adult readers plenty of food for thought)