The annual report of the Anne Frank House with an overview of its activities in 2023.
Intolerance flares up
Change can come quickly. We need only look at the first four years of Anne Frank’s life. Born in 1929 in a democratic Germany, she fled her homeland in 1933 together with her parents and sister. In just four years Germany changed from a democracy to a dictatorship. We know the further course of Anne’s life and her untimely death at the age of 15 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. One of six million victims of the Holocaust, murdered because she was Jewish.
The past gives food for thought. We worry when we look at developments in the world. We see wars and flashpoints, increasing polarisation and hatred − against Jews, against Muslims, against people who are ‘different’ − democratic values under pressure, and representatives of the people adhering to authoritarian ideas.
Like Otto Frank, we believe that education is the key to a better world. Countering antisemitism, racism and discrimination is an essential part of our mission. Through our worldwide educational activities we encourage young people to work for freedom, equal rights and democracy. Anne Frank’s diary helps in this: her words still resonate and inspire today, all over the world.
Education: the key to a better world
Teachers
How do you teach about the Holocaust in classes that are increasingly diverse? How do you respond to prejudice and antisemitic thinking among students? How do you convey the importance of democracy to students? We support teachers in their important work and provide teaching materials on the persecution of Jews and the Second World War, prejudice, antisemitism and other forms of discrimination, equal rights and democracy. We also organise workshops, training programmes and meetings for teachers and trainee teachers.
Police
The police have a formal task in countering discrimination in society. The Anne Frank House organises and supports programmes for police officers who want to learn more about diversity, equal treatment and prejudice in police work and exchange experiences in these areas.
Football clubs
Racist expressions and antisemitic chants in the football world were regularly in the news. We organised Fair Play workshops for young footballers in amateur and professional football clubs, where they learned about different forms of discrimination and exclusion. We were also working with three professional football clubs (FC Utrecht, Feyenoord and FC Den Bosch) in 2023 to combat verbal abuse: the Football Chanting Project .
The year in focus:
Building Bridges
The images from Israel and Gaza – images of innocent civilian victims – cause emotions to run high. But does that make it all right to say or chant anything? Ronald Leopold wrote a letter to the editor that appeared in the NRC on 15 November 2023. He called for thinking about the weight of our words, countering group-oriented hatred and polarisation, and building bridges. He ended with a quote from Anne Frank in 1944, who was just 15 years old at the time: ‘we’re all searching for happiness; we’re all leading lives that are different and yet the same.'
‘we’re all searching for happiness; we’re all leading lives that are different and yet the same.’
