annefrank

Ohel Leah Synagogue

OLS: CONNECT

Kislev 5768 - December 2007 Hong Kong

ANNE FRANK EXHIBITION IN

HONG KONG

by Shani Brownstein

http://www.annefrankguide.net/en-GB/content/annefrank_small.jpg

Text Box: The Anne Frank Exhibit entitled “A History for Today: A Photographic Diary” was opened in Hong Kong and China on November 7, 2007, at the Sheung Wan Civic Center by the Consul General of Holland and Gillian Walnes, Founder and Executive Director of the Anne Frank Trust UK. It will run though December 9, 2007. This bilingual exhibit, which has been loaned from The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and has been translated into Mandarin for the first time, is aimed at educating Hong Kong’s youth, taking an in-depth look at the life of Anne Frank and her family during the era of Nazi Germany and allows visitors to get a better understanding of the need for tolerance in this world. To date, more than 4100 students from more than 43 local and international schools have booked to attend the exhibit, where they are taken through by a trained guide. In advance of the opening, four seminars for teachers were run, as well as one held in November by Gillian Walnes, thereby training 60 teachers from more than 23 schools. This exposure helped teachers in integrating the topic of Anne Frank and the visit to the exhibition into the curriculum. Approximately 40 guides, all volunteers from the community, were trained by Lucy Glennon, Head of Education of the Anne Frank Trust UK, and more than an additional 60 volunteers have helped in many other ways to enable this exhibit to run for more than 4 weeks. In total, we have had more than 100 people work on this project, most from the Jewish community of Hong Kong - quite an ambitious project which was advertised on TV, Radio and the print media in both English and Cantonese. The public have also been attending in numbers, including parents returning to see the exhibit with their children, who have already visited with their schools. The biggest accomplishment this exhibit has achieved is ensuring the topic of the Holocaust and World War II is included into school curricula where it was not present before. This project has succeeded in exposing many adults and children to the life and death of Anne Frank and the lessons we must draw from her insightful writing and her short existence on this planet.