Anne Frank
Anne Frank and us. How can we learn from history?
Beijing, Anne Frank Exhibition Opening December 22, 2007
J.D. Van Vliet
Ladies and gentlemen, It is a great pleasure and a privilege for me to be here in Beijing on the occasion of the opening of our exhibition, and of the beginning of the tour of this exhibition in China. On behalf of my friends at the Anne Frank Housein Amsterdam I thank you for the opportunity to speak a few words about this project. A special word of thank you to Mr.Chen, the vice-president and the directors Zhang and Yan and their team for their support. Without your help we would not have been here today: so Thank you very much! I want to take you back into history, because the work of the Anne Frank House is a double effort: to tell what happened during the Second World War, to remember and to make a connection between what happened then, and what is happening now - not only in Europe, but also elsewhere. One of the main reasons why the diary of Anne Frank has been such a success around the world is that it is the story of one girl, of one family, of the people hiding in one house. An individual story, that gives a face and a name to the victims. Anne Frank's diary is a child's voice. The voice of one girl in the middle of history. Anne Frank's diary is also like a window that you can look through, to get an idea of the larger history of the Holocaust: the carefully planned, systematic killing of 6 million Jews in Europe during the second world war. All countries have their own histories. All countries have their painful memories, about which it is difficult to talk. I must admit that I do not yet know a lot about your country's history. But of course one episode, that of the mass killings and raping,the massive abuse carried out in Nanjing by the Japanese army, springs to my mind. This is a period that has left and still leaves deep scars for many people in China. When perpetrators and bystanders and even active participants refuse...
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