Midday; Anne Frank Exhibit

Saturday I haven't written for a few days because I wanted first of all to think about my diary. It's an odd idea for someone like me to keep a diary. Not only because I've never done so before but because it seems to me that neither I nor for that matter anyone else will be interested in the 13 year old schoolgirl. Still what does that matter. I want to write. But more than that I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart. And Frank in the world combines history and art to convey the message of the Holocaust brought to life in one extraordinary girl's diary. And although every component of the exhibit contains both artistic and factual elements the banner sculptures and paintings and other contributions of the Minnesota friends of Anne Frank tend to be the more expressionistic. Henry Francesco founded the friends coalition with his wife Jackie in 1991 after a visit to the n Frank House in Amsterdam.

The St. Paul exhibition is a culmination of the work that started with that visit the first thing that people will see will be a quote written by Anne Frank. It's by the faffing. I still believe that people are really good at heart and wrote this in her diary on July 15th 1944. That is exactly three weeks before the secret annex occupants were discovered and arrested. They were not discovered actually somebody there in the main but that is him then we also have to remember that and wrote this in her diary after being in hiding for more than two years. Now the question that we need to ask people as they come here he said if they had to if they have been hiding for more than two years we do still believe in the goodness of human beings. Would you still be able to write such a quote and we moved down here to the left. This is activated journey that people was there when they come to the exhibit so people can. Feel this this journey and this is the walk through of that and to the left of the court people will see the four themes of the

end Frank exhibit. Discrimination is cruel and irrational be it subtle or blatant. That's the first theme. And if I can elaborate on the first thing is that discrimination is never stopped. It is always split in the devic thems. The second theme is discrimination is a matter of personal choice. We all make personal choices in our lives. Discrimination is also a personal choice. The third theme is that discrimination prejudice and racism not only existed in the past but still exist today. But I want to bring a special attention to the fourth theme. It is ordinary citizens like you and me who discriminate we purposely placed that particular theme at eye level on mirrors so this people come here and they read that particular court they will see the reflection of the of themselves because each and every one of us we have a certain level of prejudice and when we act based upon our prejudice we practice discrimination. Now if I can walk you through this corridor.

On our right side various posters from the previous sides of well what Ann wrote in her diary. I want to go on living even after my death. And I truly believe that she has accomplished that. If you look at. This people from many many different countries Chile France England Italy Japan Germany Brussel to learn about and Frank Dylan about how it feels like to be living in hiding become a universal symbol of courage and hope as we move forward here. People will be greeted by a large and Frank and people when they come over here just to look at this mural and to look at her face straight into her eyes and ask themselves the question What crime did this little girl had committed to the service she went through. The answer

is always nothing. Wednesday July 1942. Dear Kitty at 3:00 o'clock someone rang the front door bell. I was reading a book on the verandah sunshine so I didn't hear it. A bit later Margot appeared at the kitchen door looking very excited. The SS have called up notice for Daddy she whispered. It was a great shock to me. Everybody knows that. A picture of concentration camps. Should we allow him to be doomed to this of course he declared. While we waited together mommy has gone to the vendor to discuss whether we should move into our hiding place tomorrow. Literally at the center of Anne Frank in the world is the collection of panels prepared by the end Franks center in Amsterdam. The photographs and text document the rise of Naziism in Europe and the Holocaust. But the story begins on a very human level with pictures of the Frank family before the occupation of pollen.

Jack Pollack is chairman of the N. Frank Center USA based in New York. Auto Frank was an avid to talk over and make pictures wherever he coached some of these pictures were in the attic wisdom and have found me piece after the Frank family was taken away and the piece was not quoted in the XTi came late and he found a diety in Anne's room and she picked up all the pictures she could find somebody already enough dead a lot of pictures they found later at flea markets before we found them from all over all over they had left of center just to the relatives in the in and out a part of the world and some of them showed up and that's really well but basically just a lot of these speeches came from and to Frank. Will was given to him after he took them from the attic. The German left them after he had been taken away. We appear to have everything in the modern day family would have in the way of pictures we have a bush of a child I was a child.

All these pictures must have been taken. You can see how an avid photographer he was. Because you can find gold and in a way that Anne Frank on a tray can and here you can find a great historical depiction of a happy family before and if you have it if you see it is you say want to go to have a nice family. What is wrong with people going to be deported just because they are Jewish and then Tuesday March 7th 1944. Dear Kitty. If I think now of my life in 1942 it all seemed so unreal. It was quite a different and one joy that heavenly existence from the endless crime wise within these walls. Yes it was a heavenly life. Boyfriends at every turn. About 20 friends and acquaintances of my own age the darling of nearly all the teachers boiled from top to toe by mommy and daddy. Lots of sweets enough pocket money. What more could one want. Jack Pollock is no mere archivist and history that unfolds an end Frank in the

world is his too. POLLACK lived in Holland at the same time as the Franks had to wear the yellow star that marked Jews and like the Franks ended up detained in the west of work concentration camp. Here you got to do is start. Which really was the. Beginning of the end for everybody because death was the ultimate discrimination Dick would find that up to that moment nobody knew of a Jew is an underused a moment that was put on and I want you to know that there were a hundred and forty shoutin Jews living in Holland 700000 Jewish Styris men affections every Jew had to buy five or six and a coat on the overcoat on the shirt whatever day Wednesday needed to Jewish stars. If it's not worth it if you wish it was going to be sent to concentration camp. So it was imperative to do good if you wish to and people I mean you were bit by names you say you were not Jewish of out of a

difficult because the Germans had a wage. Don't forget they were 10 years ahead of us in finding ways to day saw anybody under sleepers groups a little bit Jewish. They would just say hey who are you. Pass. Where were you born. To what school did you go off to London to Audi knew you did to your story if you were circumcised and you had to shout that he no chance because before the war. Now check of dates and this is something which is done by Jews and non-Jews the elites but in DC it was much more beauty only only by Jewish people. So you had very little chance. I told you before about those rates. Here you find out further out CIA raids here. What's going on you see exactly in these pictures. I will tell you my personal experience because it happened to me in July 42 I was taken that way. I was working as an accountant in an office and he took also for the same reason the German boss kilt Dave wanted to take every day could find an event into that office into anybody was a Jewish time and they took 400 people just back the he'll find them here. And in March also M saw them. And then he took

us to a square and in the square he took out of the 410 and I was one of the 10 and then 10 German SS men came forward with their guns drawn and I saw that one man and he said a special prayer juice has been hit and there's Nia and then we were brought to a school and in that school all the Germans were taking pictures of us and in front of 400 200 were free to a 200 percent to Moat House nobody died in the qualities of my house. There was never talk about extermination camp and we had no knowledge. And we had to get to get on the list of people to be sent to a labor camp gaped at least to the Jewish Council and people saw that they were going to a labor camp not knowing if in reality you are going to extermination. Then my father had left the Dutch gambit in July 43. I gave my father my new shoes and I said Father you have to work two days later my father gets to Sobibor and that is a believable seeing which people really should understand that we had no knowledge.

Friday October 9th thanking 42. Dear Kitty I've only got dismal and depressing news for you today are many Jewish friends are being taken away by the dozen. These people are treated by the Gestapo without a shred of decency being loaded into cattle trucks and sent into Westpark the big Jewish camp near Trent. Westerbork sounds terrible. Only one washing cubicle for 100 people and not nearly enough laboratories men women and children all sleep together. One hears a frightful immorality because of this and a lot of women and even girls who stay there any length of time are expecting babies. If it's as bad as this in Holland whatever will it be like in the distant and barbarous regions they're sent to. Look at these pictures. Because of the ethic as it is and anybody who would go to Amsterdam and Frank house will find it almost completely up to God because they have kept the house the hiding place excepting the way it was. You have to go up very steps to

go. I had trouble going up that small step to a really really difficult. And then of course you had to book a disclosure of death the moment the bookcase was closed and the attic and nobody could reach them. And of course the moment they found out and the bookcase was opened it was the end for them to hide the secret and it was very well done and I must say there have been many cases of fantastic hiding people smart enough to find hiding places sometimes into Celek sometimes in the attic. But if you were found out. For twenty eight thousand forty two. Dear Kitty my hand still shakes although it's two hours since we had the shock. No one had warned us when the carpenter or whatever you call him was coming. The result was that we weren't making any attempt to keep quiet until I heard hammering outside on the landing outside our cupboard door. We turned absolutely white. I nearly fainted at the thought that this utter

stranger might discover our beautiful secret hiding place. And just as I thought my last hour was at hand I heard Mr Coo say open the door it's only me. It was a great relief to me I can tell you in my imagination. The man who I thought was trying to get in had been growing and growing in size until in the end he appeared to be a giant and the greatest fascist that ever walked the earth. If the end Frank Center's photographs form the physical and factual centerpiece of the exhibit the emotional centerpiece flies off in a corner of the hall. It's there that visitors can walk through a replica of the secret annex the Frank family occupied for two years continuing on. So this corridor. That symbolizes the Ensigns the Dan Frank the secret annex. And we build this and then we literally bang on this bookcase all over to make it look old. And then we finished the book just to make it look old. But what I want

people also. Just to stand here before the end of the room. And look at this picture of the side of the entrance there's a picture of Anne Frank and her sister. And ask themselves the question what's wrong with this family. This family looks just like our family. Nothing wrong. If there's nothing wrong with this family. How could it be that for more than two years they had to be confined in hiding and the only connection they had with the outside window and there was Windows because the entrance is quite low and we have some blankets rolled around here to protect their heads as we enter and here

people to be quiet. And to feel. Have felt like. To be confined for more than two years. And. You can hear. All the noise in the background and that's what and the screeching cars could hear people talking outside but she couldn't see them. Because all those things were beyond reach. Try to get a feeling of space. She couldn't play the normal things that any human being can do. You couldn't do that. Because they were so afraid

that they would be detected. And we want people. To stay. April 11 1944. Dear Kitty who has made us Jews different from other people who has allowed us to suffer so terribly up till now. It is God that has made us as we are. But it will be God to raise us up again. If we bear all the suffering and if there are still Jews left when it's all over the Jews instead of being will be held up as an example who might even be our religion from which the world and all peoples learn good and for that reason and that reason only do we have to suffer now.