Anne Frank exhibition coming
Exhibition has been seen by millions of folk in 80 nations
Whangarei Museum is a priority stop for a widely travelled exhibition that has visited 80 countries and been seen by more than 10 million people globally.
Next week, Whangarei MuseumKiwi North will open Anne Frank: Let Me Be Myself, which was brought to New Zealand in January by the Wellington-based Holocaust Centre of New Zealand (HCNZ).
It opened at the Auckland War Memorial Museum where more than 35,000 visitors saw it in three months.
But in recognition of the powerful response from Northland to previous exhibitions about the Holocaust, Anne Frank: Let Me Be Myself will be on display in Whangarei for four months from this coming weekend.
It uses a combination of excerpts from Anne Frank’s diary, historical artifacts, pictures, video and testimony, to walk viewers through the life of the Frank family and the history of the era, and engage them in a discussion about how the same themes affect the modern world.
About persecution of all kinds — disability, prejudice, homophobia, racism and more in the 21st century — the exhibition challenges visitors to examine their own core moral values.
In 2010, the Holocaust Centre’s exhibition Anne Frank — A History for Today also showed in Whangarei. The message behind that exhibition was “Never lose hope, keep fighting against racism, keep fighting against religious discrimination.”
“We must learn from that history so it will never be repeated,” said Boyd Klap, QSO, chairman of Anne Frank Exhibition New Zealand and president of the Holocaust Centre.
“The moment that one race feels superior to another race you’ve got the Holocaust.”
Anne’s diary, written with the inno- cence, hope and intuitive wisdom of a bright 13-year-old, has long been a touchstone for persecution, whether religious, personal or political.
The day-to-day story of the Jewish girl’s experiences as her family hid from the German Gestapo in a secret room in Amsterdam during World War II has been read by countless millions of people.
The Anne Frank House, which compiled Anne Frank: Let Me Be Myself, was established in 1957 in cooperation with Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father. The house where the Franks hid from July 1942 to August 1944 is now a museum.
After their capture by the Gestapo in August 1944, the family were taken to concentration camps. In October or November 1944, Anne and her sister Margot were transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen, where they died — probably of typhus.
In 1947 Otto, the only survivor, published Anne’s journal under the title The Diary of a Young Girl.