"You gotta be as blind as Anne Frank not to see that"

As a boy, Islip Town Councilman Chris Bodkin read "The Diary of Anne Frank" and was moved by the plight of the Jewish girl and her family during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam.

As a young man, Bodkin traveled there and stayed in a hostel next to the Franks' former hiding place; he would gaze into the annex and imagine what it must have been like to hide from the Nazis.

Now, the councilman and retired ferry captain has embarked on a quixotic mission: He is pushing a congressional effort to grant Anne Frank honorary U.S. citizenship, something that has been given to only six people, including Mother Teresa and Winston Churchill.