Frank’s letters come alive
SYDNEYSIDERS will be able to take part in a world first at the Sydney Jewish Museum (SJM) next Thursday at a cocktail party launching the museum’s exhibition, Anne Frank: A History for Today.
SYDNEYSIDERS will be able to take part in a world first at the Sydney Jewish Museum (SJM) this Thursday at a cocktail party launching the museum’s exhibition, Anne Frank: A History for Today.
Attendees will be able to view recently discovered correspondence from the 1950s to 1970s between young Australians and Anne’s father Otto, following the publication of his daughter’s diary.
The letters, which form part of the exhibition, were located by the SJM team last year and reflect how those teenage Australian girls were inspired by the young Bergen-Belsen victim’s words.
Consul-general of the Netherlands Willem Cosijn will officially open the exhibition, which has been on show at the SJM since last week and will run until September this year.
Among those in attendance will be some of the women whose letters feature in the exhibition.
The evening will also include a string quartet performance of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, a piece of music by Mozart to which Anne refers in a diary entry from April 11, 1944.
“The launch … presents an opportunity to bring together a kind of ‘Anne Frank community’ who feel bound in some way by her writing, optimism and experiences,” SJM events manager Aviva Wolff told The AJN.
The broader Anne Frank exhibition explores the life and times of the young girl, who hid with her family in a secret annex in a factory in Amsterdam for two years during World War II.
SJM education officer Marie Bonardelli described it as “an exhibition that enriches our understanding of the Holocaust, as it places victim and survivor testimony and experiences at the centre of its narrative”.
“We not only learn about the escalating persecution of European Jews under the Nazi regime, but also about the thoughts and feelings of a teenage girl experiencing it firsthand. Her reflections invite visitors to consider the universal messages of her diary and reflect on one’s own citizenship and contributions to the world.”
ELENORE LEVI
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