We’ve all heard about Anne Frank and how her family hid from Nazi’s. What isn’t talked about as much is how her life was before they went into hiding.

In the production Goodbye Memories, it gives the audience an inside look at the life of Anne Frank and her relationships with her family and friends. Anne Frank was only 13 which is only a couple of years younger than most of us. She had the same thoughts as most of us, whether it’s crushes or certain curious thoughts. The performance given by the cast was both funny at times but especially heartfelt.

When asked what inspired her to direct this production, the director Sarah Barthel stated “This year marked 80 years since Anne Frank and her family went into hiding.  The further we get away from the Holocaust, the less we think about the specific horrors that happened.  It is easier to forget something we don’t know much about.  My hope with bringing this show to the Lompoc community is that it would remind us of what so many people suffered through in the 1940s, so that we might never repeat those atrocities.”    

Goodbye Memories specifically aims to let audiences connect with these characters as people; every single character in the play is a real person.  Sometimes we think of people like Anne Frank as historical figures and we forget that they were real people with feelings and hopes and dreams.” This production was also described as “The prequel to The Diary of Anne Frank.”