Anne Frank Exhibition Sydney

Anne Frank Exhibition carries its important message to Sydney

The Anne Frank Exhibition has launched in Sydney, giving school children the opportunity to learn the history of the Holocaust through the moving diary of a young teenager during the Second World War.

The exhibition has arrived in Sydney after travelling in Melbourne and rural Victoria for the past year.

Jozef Vissel, a Holocaust survivor now living in Sydney, told his story. And in a moving tribute, his granddaughter Ashleigh Vissel played an extract from the film Schindler’s List on a violin that belonged to her great-grandfather.

With over 100 guests attending the launch on March 6, and already hundreds of school children planning to see the exhibition, Sydney Jewish Museum president Gus Lehrer said he was delighted at the interest in the exhibition.

“Anne frank has become a symbol of the holocaust. She is not just a historical person and her diary is not just a historical document,” he said.

“They are both symbols of a dark age where evil prevailed and from which most people recoil when they think about it, yet we all feel there is something uplifting about her story.”

The Consulate-General in Sydney of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Willem Cosijn, told the audience that the travelling exhibition carries an important message. “Learning about her life challenges all to think about the really important failures in our own life,” he said.

He also praised the many volunteers and staff involved with the exhibition.

“I salute you people that had the idea of making this travelling exhibition, of getting it up in the air, he said.

“The government of the Netherlands provides some money but that’s the easy way. It’s about the people that work, and spend the time and effort.”

Chairman of the Anne Frank Exhibition in Australia, Mr Boyd Klapp, welcomed guests to the 22nd function in Australia since the exhibitions’ launch in Melbourne last year.

We had 50,000 people in Victoria,” he said.

“We already have a booking in Tamworth for February next year and what was originally a three month event, we’ve got a booking in Perth for 2017. ” The exhibition will head to Dubbo in June, then Griffith and Newcastle before its arrival in Canberra next year.

Two Men And A Truck has sponsored the exhibition as part of its community outreach program, Moving Together.

Interview with Boyd Klap