Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Lennox and Addington County Museum and Archives will host a travelling exhibit entitled Anne Frank-A History For Today, running Oct. 15-Nov. 21.
To help mark the opening, local Holocaust survivor Jocheded Katan will be sharing her story at the museum on Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. Her talk, titled Five Courageous Helpers: My Family’s Precarious Survival in Holland, speaks about the Courageous Gentiles that helped them to survive. Admission to the talk is $3 at the door.
Following the talk, the exhibit will be open Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. as well as Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. through Nov. 21.
Originating from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, the exhibit travels across Canada, featuring printed banner displays that tell Frank’s story as a teenager hiding from the Nazi occupation in the Secret Annex throughout WWII.
“The main objective is to make sure it’s for teenagers, the people that are the age of what Anne Frank was when she was in the Annex,” explains Mikael Dumont, a Canadian rep for the Anne Frank House who helped to set up the exhibit in Napanee.
“The exhibit starts with the aftermath of the first World War, to see how things were getting for Germany, with the Treaty of Versailles and what the consequences were for the German people” explains Dumont. “We start in the beginning of the 1920s, we see that (Frank’s) parents, her father, and her uncle and her grandmother were in the German armies in the First World War. They were part of the German population. We see in the 1920s how the German population were getting mad because times were very tough. The currency was low, inflation was rising up so it was very difficult times for them. We see how it took time but the Nazis were getting more and more powerful because they had quick solutions to solve big problems.”
After the Nazis were elected into power in the 1930s, the Frank family moves to the Netherlands, and go into hiding after WWII is declared and the Nazis invade.
“We see the first years of the occupation and how they had to go into hiding,” said Dumont.
During that time, Frank kept a diary which would go on to become one of the most well known publications in history, being translated into over 70 languages. Dumont says the diary, on which the exhibit is based, is a vital piece of information from that time because they are the unfiltered thoughts of not only a female, but a teenager living through the era.
Part of the mandate of the Anne Frank House is to discuss the horrors of that time to help ensure they never happen again.
L&A County Museum and Archives is located at 97 Thomas Street E in Napanee.