Education department head Weber invites you to Anne Frank Day 2024
To mark the 95. Frank's 95th birthday on 12 June, the city of her birth is hosting a whole week of events / The motto of the program is: "Why can't people live together peacefully?"
On Wednesday, 12 June, Anne Frank would have been 95 years old. Together with numerous participating institutions and cooperation partners, the City of Frankfurt and the Anne Frank Educational Centre have been organizing Anne Frank Day every year since 2017. The city of Anne Frank's birth is now celebrating her half-century birthday with a whole week of events in her honor, inviting people to reflect on her life, her writing and the themes she captured in her world-famous diary. Her words "Why can't people live together peacefully?", which she wrote in her diary on May 3, 1944, allow for numerous references to current issues as the motto of this year's Anne Frank Day. In view of current world events, ongoing wars and conflicts, the organizers are pinning their hopes on peace and a democratic community that actively defends its values against hatred and misanthropy in the 2024 European election year.
"We must be vigilant. Our democracy cannot be taken for granted. We have to keep an eye on it, deal with its threats and defend it with all our might," emphasizes Sylvia Weber, Head of Education. "The legacy of Anne Frank, one of the city's most famous daughters, is a mandate for all of us to protect our peaceful and open society. We do this with a living culture of remembrance - and that is why we have created Anne Frank Day. In the Paulskirchenstadt, we raise our voices together and make clear what the National Socialists did to Anne Frank, her family and the whole world. Anne Frank Day is more relevant than ever and I am very grateful that many people join us year after year."
"We are currently experiencing, more than ever, how fronts are hardening and rifts are deepening in society - we want to counteract this with our educational and event program, especially around Anne Frank Day," says Prof. Meron Mendel, Director of the Anne Frank Educational Centre. "The question of the possibility of peace, which Anne Frank wrote down during the ongoing Nazi war of extermination, is still driving many people today. Be it with regard to the Middle East conflict or other wars, for example in Ukraine, but also with regard to the lines of conflict running within our society and the threat to peace within society posed by anti-Semitism, racism and other forms of misanthropy."
This year, the Anne Frank Day program extends over the entire week of her birthday from Monday, 10 June to Sunday, 16 June. Numerous institutions are taking part with workshops, panel discussions, museum and synagogue tours, exhibitions and a film evening, concerts and award ceremonies - including the Jewish Community Frankfurt, the Jewish Museum, the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the VHS Frankfurt, the Frankfurter Jugendring, the Evangelical Deanery Frankfurt and Offenbach, the Fritz Bauer Institute, the DGB and the Frankfurt Music School.
The partners have organized more than a dozen events aimed at different target groups and covering a wide range of topics. To kick things off on Monday, June 10, from 6 p.m., a high-profile panel invited by the Fritz Bauer Institute and the VHS will discuss highly political issues relating to the Middle East conflict and opportunities for de-escalation. The event will continue directly afterwards from 8 pm at the Protestant Academy. Under the title "Loneliness and Echoes", the panel discussion of several cooperation partners will focus on the Jewish perspective on October 7, which has evoked dark memories and permanently changed the world we live in.
The Frankfurt School Prize will also be awarded again this year as part of Anne Frank Day. Under the motto "Peace with me, with you, with everyone", ten schools have been nominated and each has been awarded prize money of 2,000 euros. The diverse approaches range from projects that practise careful self-care and communication with others to topics such as cross-group cohesion and civil courage against queer discrimination. The best three schools will be awarded additional cash prizes at the awards ceremony on Wednesday, 12 June in St Paul's Church.
The full program can be found at Homepage of the Anne Frank Educational Centre, which is in charge of organizing the day together with the Department of Education, Real Estate and New Building. All interested parties are invited to attend the events. Registration options can be found in the program.
The flyer for Anne Frank Day 2024 can be can be downloaded HERE.
