Harvard student magazine sorry for ‘insensitive’ Anne Frank with bikini cartoon

The Harvard Lampoon has apologised for printing an “insensitive” cartoon depicting the German-born Jewish diarist Anne Frank wearing a bikini.

The satirical university magazine published a doctored photo of Anne Frank’s head over a bikini-clad body.

It carried the caption“Gone Before Her Time: Virtual Aging Technology Shows Us What Anne Frank Would Have Looked Like if She Hadn’t Died.

“Your list of reasons the Holocaust sucked.”

The image was included in an issue distributed around campus at the weekend, prompting immediate backlash from students and beyond.

Over 250 students demanded the Lampoon be held accountable in a petition circulated on social media, The Harvard Crimson reports. 

Robert Trestan, the director of Anti-Defamation League’s Boston branch, also expressed his concern on social media.

“At a time of surging global #antisemitism @Harvard @harvardlampoon publishes outrageous, insensitive, sexualised #AnneFrank meme that is shameful and harmful,” he wrote.

“Line between humor & #antisemitism has been crossed – apology needed @AnneFrankCenter @annefrankhouse @HolocaustMuseum.” 

Frank perished in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp of typhus at the age of 15 shortly before the camp was liberated by British troops in April 1945.

Her father was the only surviving member of her family after the Franks were discovered hiding in Amsterdam in August 1944.

Her diary, published posthumously in 1947 and later published in English, has been translated into at least 60 languages.

A new translation and edition was published in Germany, Austria and Switzerland earlier this month.