Part of the exhibition <i>Anne Frank - Let me be myself</i>.
Part of the exhibition <i>Anne Frank - Let me be myself</i>.
What do children living in Whangārei in 2018 take from an exhibition about the life and times of a Jewish girl their age who died from persecution in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam in World War II? Quite a lot, writes Lindy Laird.
Peer guide Luca Reo explains one of the displays to her fellow students.
The Kamo Intermediate students are about the age the girl they've been learning about was when her family went into hiding for two years in Nazi-occupied Netherlands.
We older people know who she was — countless millions of people have read the gifted, fated Anne Frank's diary or heard about the life lived in what she called the ''Secret Annex'', in World War II Amsterdam.
But that was an age and a world away from the reality of these Kamo kids visiting the exhibition Anne Frank - Let me be myself, on show at Whangārei Museum. The past is another country, they do things differently there.
So I'm tagging along, and thinking aloud rather than asking direct questions, as one of Kamo Intermediate's ''syndicates'' — I imagine that means class or level — navigates what must seem to them ancient history.
''Not that ancient. My grandparents were born by then,'' one boy tells me.
Several students are sharing information with their classmates about each display and answering questions as small groups of kids move between various storyboards, models and activities. These are the peer guides, students who've spent time with the museum's educator learning more deeply about each display and how, if a display is not directly about Anne's diary, it links to it.
Xavier Brophy, left, peer guide Marshall Sauer, Mere Beazley-Smith and Tianah Boakes look at a model of the house where the Franks hid
The peer guides are earnest, knowledgeable and, I feel, quite courageous in tackling the manifestation of genocide, inhumanity, sociopathic hatred and megalomania. They shoulder quite a lot of responsibility, really.
''It's important we never forget,'' a small, pony-tailed girl says seriously.
''One thing Anne wrote in her diary was 'What is done cannot be undone, but one can prevent it happening again'. That's a very important message of this exhibition.''
How well said.
Part of the exhibition <i>Anne Frank - Let me be myself</i>.
The title Anne Frank - Let me be myself refers to another poignant sentence from the deeply private journal that would become The Diary of a Young Girl, also known as The Diary of Anne Frank and, in Dutch, Het Achterhuis. The full quote is 'Let me be myself and then I am satisfied'.
''Anne couldn't really be herself because she wasn't free, she was discriminated against because of who she was,'' wise little pony-tail says.
Business man Otto Frank gave his daughter the red-and-white checked diary for her 13th birthday on June 12, 1942, a month before the family went into hiding to escape the Nazi persecution of the Jewish people.
The diary and the extraordinary writing excite a group of girls whose words tumble out as they share what they know.
''At first she only wrote about herself, like what she was feeling and what the others in the secret room were doing. Then she began to make characters up and write stories. She had imaginary friends she wrote about."
''She dreamed of becoming a writer and journalist after the war. She rewrote her diary 11 times a day, to give herself something to do and try to perfect it."
''Three other people hid with Anne, her sister Margot and their parents in a room behind a bookcase for over two years. The bookcase swung out like a secret door ...''
''They were helped by other people who weren't Jews but who didn't like what the Nazis were doing. The Nazis would go around the neighbourhood searching houses and asking people if they knew where Jewish people might be hiding.''
''Anne's family were hiding from July 1942 until August 1944.''
''And then someone narked.''
Kamo Intermediate teacher James Brown explains the whole school has been studying, through its social sciences curriculum, how the past has influenced the present and future.
''We've likened it to a dead body at a crime scene. The students have to analyse the situation.
''What our syndicate did was look at the ancient Egyptians, European settlement in New Zealand and discrimination through history.
''We've also looked at Parihaka and peaceful resistance against discrimination, the American civil rights movement, the United Nations, the impact of things like the atomic bomb and electricity, apartheid and the Springbok Tour and the Holocaust.
''They were shocked, and they have provided some fantastic work. It has been wonderful to see them tackle some of the concepts involved.
''We've looked at what influences and effects those things had. Have they changed the world, are those things still happening, where?
''It seemed quite timely to bring them along to this exhibition. We were happy to put some of the students into the peer group leader programme. It's a great chance all round.''
Some displays more than others in this world-travelled exhibition — it's already been in 60 countries and seen by 80 million people — appeal to 11, 12 and 13 year olds.
There's a huddle around the Spy Bike.
It's a rusty old bicycle that was found buried in a garden in a small Netherlands town.
The peer guide is telling classmates about how the German soldiers confiscated bikes to stop people travelling quickly, secretly, between villages to pass on news or messages.
''The Nazis took the bikes away to limit communication. This very bike, the Spy Bike, was buried in a garden and the people would dig it up every night and pedal like crazy to outlying villages, then go back and bury it again,'' she says.
''It hasn't even got any gears,'' a boy says incredulously.
''I think it's so cool,'' a girl says. ''When we heard about the bike being in the exhibition I was excited.''
After 30 minutes some of the students are getting a little noisier, the groups becoming more fluid, the peer guides having to deal with interruptions, but the air feels charged with young brainpower, and fresh with some kids being kids.
Two boys are discussing why the Gestapo bothered taking away people they found — two-thirds of whom were doomed to die — rather than shoot them on the spot. (Cue: imitation sounds of doors being kicked in and machine gun fire.)
Other students mull over the confronting historical events they've been studying.
The diary was hidden by supporters and published as a book after the war by Anne's father Otto, the only family member to survive the Holocaust
''I know it did happen, but I still don't get how it could happen,'' one boy says. ''Half a million Jewish children were killed by the Nazis. That's, like, nearly half the children there are in New Zealand.''
''Hitler hated children,'' a classmate adds emphatically.
''Unless they were blue-eyed, blond Aryans,'' says another.
''Hitler didn't even have blue eyes or blond hair,'' another muses.
But the first boy is still perplexed about the hows and whys.
''If you didn't die, or you didn't die from depression, or you didn't get ratted on, what hope would you have anyway? No one knew when this would ever end ... ''
A bunch of kids animatedly point to themselves.
''If we were all Jewish and got caught, two out of three of us would die,'' one of them says, anger and pain in her clear voice. ''We would be killed, we would be enslaved, we would have had all our belongings stolen ...''
''It's easy to say three million people died, but to read the book is to make it real. It's the story of a real girl.''
''She wrote some amazing things. I mean, she was our age!''
Yes. Among many beautiful bites in the famous diary was, 'I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains'. And, 'How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world'.
But after writing that Anne would be dead a few months later. Captured in their hiding place by the Gestapo - historians suspect a tip-off - Anne and Margot were taken to Auschwitz where their mother died.
The girls were then transferred to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where they died of typhus in February or March 1945.
Isn't that incredibly sad, the reporter says, somewhat understating the emotional impact, but lost for words. Is there even a word for something so terrible?
