Anne Frank Tag: "Remembering and Engaging" | Books | '
Deutsche Welle: Why is there an Anne Frank Center in Berlin and not in Frankfurt, the birthplace of Anne Frank?
Patrick Siegele: There is also an educational center in Frankfurt am Main – and here in the German capital the center is the German partner organization of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. This was a decision that was made after the turn of the 1990s, when the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam decided to support an organization in Berlin that would promote the memory of Anne Frank also there and in the new federal states.
Was the basic idea to anchor the topic of Anne Frank and the work against anti-Semitism from the beginning in the then so-called new federal states?
That was exactly the original idea, and it came from Amsterdam. There was a citizens' initiative of people who had joined forces after the fall of the Wall, people who were concerned in the broadest sense with the culture of remembrance. They introduced the idea of establishing the center as a permanent location.
In Berlin-Mitte is the Anne Frank Center – not to be overlooked by the large mural
Was there no memory of Anne Frank in the GDR?
It is often said that in the GDR because of the friendship with the Arab countries there was no room for memories of Jewish victims. You can not say that on a flat rate. Anne Frank is a good example. The premiere of the play from 1956 "The Diary of Anne Frank" took place at the same time in Dresden and in West Berlin. There were also Anne Frank Schools and Anne Frank Brigades. In eastern Germany, too, there was a culture of remembrance of Anne Frank, although she and her family were drawn rather as resistance fighters and their Jewish identity was not so much emphasized. But you knew her, and her diary has been published several times in the GDR since 1957.
What is the task of the Anne Frank Center?
We summarize them with the words Remembering and Engaging. On the one hand, it is about remembering Anne Frank as a victim of National Socialism and doing so especially with children and adolescents. With traveling exhibitions and the exhibition here in the house, with the Anne Frank Day. On the other hand, there is always the question: what has the story of Anne Frank, the confrontation with National Socialism and the Holocaust to do with us today?
What else can Anne Frank tell children and young people today?
Anne Frank and her diary says a lot about ourselves as well. In biographical learning, connections between Anne Frank and the teenagers themselves are established. There are so many things in common that the adolescents can find, similar dreams, similar everyday problems, similar thoughts that they may go around the world. But the difference is that Anne Frank was denied her right to life as a Jew, that she was discriminated against and had to go underground.
This is a very simple level where teens can learn something. Anne Frank knows her through her diary, and in our exhibitions, they first see Anne as a normal teenager as they are themselves. But their story shows where hate, where anti-Semitism and exclusion can lead, and that Anne Frank has been reduced to just a part of their identity. She was not just the girl and the teenager, the girlfriend and the good student – she was Jewish, too, and that was what happened to her and that she eventually had to die.
Exhibition in the Anne Frank Center Berlin
This is something that young people may still be able to understand today, that even today we tend to reduce people to belonging to a particular group by creating prejudices and stereotypes, and that we no longer see the human being as such. Anne Frank also writes in her diary: "When will we be human again and not just Jews?"
To the point of engagement comes always the question: what can I do? Where are my own scope of action? At that time people waited far too long. Many could not imagine where this could lead. When it was even easier to fight back or make a difference, people did not do enough. And gradually, the scope for action for both the persecuted, but also for the majority by the dictatorship more and more restricted. And at some point it was too late.
Do many young people and school classes come here?
Here in our exhibition alone, we have about 10,000 young people or people every year, whom we supervise in our local educational programs. In total, we count about 35,000 visitors. But there are also the young people, whom we reach via our traveling exhibitions. That is again between 15,000 and 20,000 annually.
Of the visitors, about two-thirds are not German-speaking. With our exhibition in Berlin we specifically address families. There are few offers for children and adolescents on the subject of National Socialism and the Holocaust in Berlin. Although there are many memorials and exhibitions, but rather aimed at an adult audience. This makes our exhibitions attractive for families. And Anne Frank is very well-known internationally. Her diary has been translated into 80 languages, so many people have heard of Anne Frank. Not all can go to Amsterdam to visit the Anne Frank House there.
Our exhibition informs about Anne Frank, and she builds the bridge from history to the present. It's about issues of anti-Semitism today, about commemoration. What does that mean? Above all, the exhibition is aimed at children and adolescents, to think about these questions themselves, to participate and to leave something here in the museum. It is in the true sense of the word an interactive exhibition that encourages participation.
They say that references to the present are made. What comes back from the teenagers?
Of course, the young people also make references from history to the present. We also ensure that they are not left alone at the traveling exhibitions. Sometimes, we cooperate with local museum educators or history teachers so that they can approach someone with such questions, or if they need help. Especially on the subject of persecution and escape that often happens.
We also published material on this, "Flucht im CV", in which we deal with the migration and flight history of the Frank family. Because far too few people know that Otto Frank has also been actively working to leave Amsterdam after the German Wehrmacht invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. Although he and his wife had relatives in the US, and even worked in New York for a while, he did not succeed in getting a visa for his family. Among other things, because they were considered stateless – after all, the National Socialists deprived the foreign Jews of their citizenship in 1941. Later, there was no US consulate in the Netherlands.
All this meant that the family had no choice but to go underground. There may be similarities to escape stories of today. But there are always differences, and it is also very important to us to highlight the special nature of the situation of the Frank family and thus the special nature of the persecution situation of Jews and to work with the young people.
Of course, a systematically organized genocide, such as the Holocaust, where the state and all its institutions worked to destroy a minority not only in Germany but later in Europe, can not be equated with what is happening today in terms of exclusion, discrimination and persecution. It is also important to talk with young people about these differences, to show that we live in a constitutional democracy and that it is important to preserve that.
You have already mentioned the Anne Frank day. What special activities are you planning for Anne Frank's 90th birthday on June 12th?
The Anne Frank Tag is already the third year. But this year, of course, he has a special meaning again, because it is the 90th Birthday. We have about 150 to 200 schools nationwide, which participate in this year. We're really glad. You must know, there are only one hundred Anne Frank schools in Germany, that's the most common school name. And many of these schools are happy that there is a concrete offer every year now, because the schools like to do something for the 12th of June.
Visitors in the permanent exhibition "Everything about Anne"
What is the offer?
This year, of course, everything is under the sign "90 years Anne Frank". The schools will receive from us a six-part poster exhibition with large posters informing about the life story of Anne Frank and which all participating schools can hang up in the auditorium or in the hallway. All students receive the so-called "Anne Frank Zeitung", which informs about the life story of Anne Frank, then also postcards and bookmarks. They are designed so that the young people should also think about themselves: Where are people being discriminated today because of their religion or their origin? Where can I possibly observe exclusion? Why is it important to remember Anne Frank today? What does that tell me personally? The students can fill in these cards and complete the exhibition. More than 30,000 students will remember Anne Frank this year.
How close is the partnership with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam?
We are officially the German partner organization of the house in Amsterdam. The two directors of the house sit with us on the board and help shape our work on this level. All larger and smaller projects are done in cooperation with the Anne Frank House. As coproduction of Berlin and Amsterdam, we have an Anne Frank House Network, for which we organize an international meeting every year. And of course our new exhibition "Everything about Anne" was a joint development with the Anne Frank House.
At this exhibition we also worked very closely with the Anne Frank Fonds in Basel, who once again provided us with pictures and objects for our exhibition. Even though we are the German partner organization of the "Haus", we also work together with the education center in Frankfurt, the Anne Frank Fund in Basel and international partner organizations.
Patrick Siegele, born in 1974, studied German philology and musicology in Austria and Great Britain. Since 2014 he is director of the Anne Frank Center. From 2015 to 2017 he was Coordinator of the Independent Expert Group Anti-Semitism (commissioned by the German Bundestag). Siegele is a member of the Advisory Council of the Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance and the Forum against Racism.
The interview was led by Sabine Peschel.
ليست هناك تعليقات