Mount Pleasant Magazine 6.4

her childhood friend. But in 2013, a cousin discovered the

doll on the Internet – a women who lived just around the

corner from where she grew up had put it up for sale. One

night she was surprised and elated to find Anneke Pop on

her bed.

“If you offered me a million dollars for that doll, I

wouldn’t take it,” she said.

Adkins, who has been speaking to groups about the

Holocaust since the 1980s, is a recipient of

The Post and

Courier’s

Jefferson Award. She has received citations from

the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and she

has written a book. “Can Forgive, But Cannot Forget”

recounts her life in Holland and after the war and includes

copies of letters she has received from children and adults

and who heard her presentation. Proceeds from the book

will help homeless and wounded veterans and the Holo-

caust Museum in Washington, D.C.

Adkins, who doesn’t take her message to children un-

der the age of 11, opens her presentations with a movie

about the Holocaust. Then she talks about all the groups

of people who were murdered by the Nazis. Six million

Jews perished, but millions of Gypsies, homosexuals,

Jehovah’s Witnesses, dark-skinned people, and those who

were handicapped and with mental problems also were

put to death.

“I would like to teach the world to all hold hands to-

gether, no matter what their religion,” she said. “We need

to love each other more.”

At 78, life is not all sunshine and blue skies for Diny

Adkins. She has been through therapy and has been diag-

nosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome. She still suffers

from flashbacks, panic attacks, nightmares and claustro-

phobia, all a result of what she went through as a child.

Despite it all, she refuses to hate.

“To me, hate is a dirty word,” she said.

The Rollling Stones and the Beatles are among Adkins’ favorites.

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