This story appeared in the Dec. 21, 2012 Jewish Advocate.

The story behind "The Anne Frank Story":

Following sold-out HOB show, Human Sexual Response members discuss Holocaust song

By Susie Davidson

Special to the Advocate

The period between the late 1970s and the early 1980s was a storied time in Boston rock music history, spawning numerous, talented local bands that caught major favor among fans who still treasure the era.

None of these beloved acts were more boundary-smashing, and perhaps more acclaimed, than Human Sexual Response, a gender-bending ensemble whose lifespan was from 1978-82. The moniker came from Casey Cameron, who sang their best-known song, “Jackie Onassis,” and was an editor at Little, Brown and Company, which had published the 1966 Masters and Johnson’s classic. Other members include guitarist Rich Gilbert, a fixture on the Boston as well as national stages in HSR and other groups; Chris MacLachlan on bass; Malcolm Travis on drums; singers Windle Davis; and brothers Larry Bangor and Dini Lamot.

At last month’s sold-out reunion show at the House of Blues, 3000-odd devotees were treated to the septet’s classic repertoire, which included a hauntingly reflective, trancelike ode to a young girl in an Amsterdam attic:

“Time warp at the Anne Frank Museum/Push back the bookcase, you can see 'em/Anne's always scribbling in her scrapbook;/Peek over her shoulder and take a closer look,” sang Bangor on Nov. 10 at the HOB, accompanied by echoing, pulsating guitar rhythms and the six others’ unified, sustained chorus of “Ti-i-ime Warp!”

What inspired this paeon to one of the most tragically familiar figures of the Holocaust, laced in between compositions like “Land of the Glass Pinecones,” “Andy Fell,” “What Does Sex Mean to Me,” and their infamous cover (complete with the group donned in nurses’ uniforms) of “Cool Jerk?”

“Larry has a longtime friend named Paul, a flight attendant for Lufthansa,” explained Davis last weekend at the Inn at Hudson (New York), the bed and breakfast he operates with Lamot (following the passage of the Marriage Equality Act in the New York Senate last June, the two wed onstage at the local Club Helsinki). “Paul used to send postcards, and at least twice, sent cards from the Anne Frank Museum,” Davis recalled. One day, Bangor’s roommate Daved (sic.) Hild, of the Boston punk/Dada band The Girls, was going through the cards, and suggested that Bangor pen a song about Anne Frank.

“’Diary of a Young Girl’ was a Scholastic Book Club choice when I was a kid,” said Bangor, who lives in Manhattan and happened to be in town, where he maintains a second home. “It was real exposure for me.” He said that he wrote the song in one afternoon. “It’s important to keep memory alive, and she was such an iconic figure,” he said.

Brother Dini said the two grew up in Bangor (henceforth the pseudonym). “It was a completely Jewish neighborhood,” he said. “All our friends were Jewish.”

The book was required reading in Davis’ 6^th grade class in Syracuse in 1967. “But I had already devoured it the summer before on the advice of a friend,” he said. “Our teacher emphasized the loneliness that isolation creates, and how this particular teenager found life in not only isolation, but forced isolation,” he said. “As a young teen who was not yet out, I could relate in some small way to that isolation, although my isolation was self-inflicted,” he said.

When the band broke up in 1982, Davis had the opportunity to attend a puppeteers’ convention in East Germany with friend Caleb Fullam, along with the group Union Internationale de la Marionette (U.N.I.M.A.), including Muppet creator Jim Henson. “On the way back from Dresden, Caleb and I decided to visit Amsterdam,” he recalled. “Caleb had the smart idea of being first in line at the Frank house in the morning, so that’s what we did.” Since the two were there at the beginning of the day, they were able to linger and contemplate within the rooms of the hidden apartment. “Considering that we Americans are used to more space, and even in comparison to other sites around Amsterdam, these rooms were small,” he said. “As emotions flooded over me, I looked to my friend Caleb and quickly realized he would be no help (with uplifting me). I couldn't wait to get home to Dini and Larry and tell them about it all, and of course, about Shelley Winters’ Oscar on view near the exit,” he said.

“Time warp at the Anne Frank Museum/Up the back stairway, you can see 'em/Downstairs, all day, the baker's baking/Pastries the Franks are never tasting”… Bangor told the Advocate that he later learned that it wasn't really a bakery. But close　enough. Otto Frank's business manufactured pectin, an ingredient　used in jams　(in a sad irony, Scholastic's web site features　a 1997 interview with Frank family abetter Miep Gies, who explains that the hiding place was originally a laboratory used for product development). Not only that, but the analogy holds, as the sweet life most definitely eluded the imprisoned family.

For four years, Bangor was the secretary to renowned psychiatrist Bertram Schaffner, who died at 97 in 2010. Schaffner, whose 1948 work “Father Land” became a standard university text as well as a tool for German officials setting up anti-Nazi democratic systems following the war, served as a neuropsychiatrist with the U.S. Army, saw active combat during the Battle of the Bulge, and was called upon to participate in the Nuremberg trials. “I went through his papers and letters and through them, came to know him, as well as the war situation he lived through,” said Bangor, who said that he is also a big fan of playwright　Peter Weiss, a Holocaust refugee who wrote the classic Marat/Sade. His other known work, “The Investigation,” focuses on the Frankfurt Auschwitz War Crimes trials (1963-65), in which 22 defendants were charged for their roles as mid to lower-level officers at the death camp complex. Weiss, who attended the trials, used actual testimony of Auschwitz survivor witnesses in the drama.

How does it feel to be invisible?/To know the future and not be miserable?/How does it feel to walk through walls when/The walls are landscapes for our heroine?/Time warp at the Anne Frank Museum (Ti-i-ime Warp!) Time warp at the Anne Frank Museum (Ti-i-ime Warp!)

The band members spoke of the remarkable logistics that played out behind the recording of the song at Downtown Sound, which was a studio below the Boston Center for the Arts’ Cyclorama Dome. “The brick dome created natural reverb,” said Lamot. “And we did a perfect vocal take. But on the last note, a siren went by outside.” They kept the siren in.

“The song is very chilling to perform,” said Lamot. “One night, we (HSR) were playing at the Living Room in Providence, and I remember it was freezing out, but the place was packed,” remembered Davis, who said that it might have been the night John Kennedy, Jr. was there. “It was a really high-energy night with everybody dancing around, and as we settled into ‘Anne Frank,’ so did the crowd,” he said. “When the song ended, there was silence, really a long pause, and then huge applause. Something had happened, and I will never forget it. 100 punk rockers had a moment brought to you by Anne Frank, and Larry of course,” he said. “It was truly one of the most memorable nights of my life.”

Not the full-capacity crowd at the House of Blues? “That show brought tears to my eyes,” said Lamot, who said that his drag side act, Musty Chiffon, includes a line of blue-and-white-decked singers in Chanukah attire. “It was thrilling in every way.　We saw signs that said ‘welcome home.’ It was as much fun for the band to be playing as it was for the audience.”

Bangor said that while walking home following the Advocate interview, he saw “The Investigation” displayed in a Hudson storefront window.