2023-11-07 03:14:26
It is a long-standing project, but one which is creating controversy at a time when anti-Semitic acts are increasing. The Anne Frank nursery in Tangerhütte (northeast of Germany) plans to change its name, as part of a modernization project.
Faced with the rise of a controversy, the mayor of the city reacted this Monday, assuring the German media People’s voice that the decision had not yet been made and that discussions were continuing.
Changing the name of this children’s establishment is part of a desire for modernization. The project has been in the works since the beginning of 2023, according to the elected official of the town. Or “well before current events” in the Middle East. By abandoning the name Anne Frank, the project was to “make visible the change in concept (of the crèche) and to visibly mark a new beginning”. In the eyes of the nursery director, the personality of the young girl who currently lends her name is “difficult for small children to understand”. Furthermore, she believes that parents with an immigrant background did not understand this name. “We wanted something that had no political connotation,” she explained to the German newspaper.
“Bad signal”
The name Anne Frank is known to almost everyone. This young Jewish German girl, who died at the age of 15 in the Bergen-Belsen camp, hid with her family for two years in the Netherlands, between 1942 and 1944, before being the victim of a roundup. His diary, recounting this period, was found and published. It is one of the most significant of the Holocaust.
The desire to rename a crèche which bore the teenager’s name notably earned criticism from the vice-president of the International Auschwitz Committee, who expressed his fear “in these times of revival of anti-Semitism”.
“If we are ready to brush aside our own history so easily, precisely in these times of rising anti-Semitism and right-wing extremism, and if the name Anne Frank is perceived as inappropriate in the public space , we can only be concerned about the culture of memory in our country,” insisted Christoph Heubner. The organization “Miteinander” (Together), which has been fighting racism and anti-Semitism in the Saxony-Anhalt region (where Tangerhütte is located) for years, called the name change a “bad signal”.
#Germany #plan #change #crèche #called #Anne #Frank #creates #controversy