The exhibition, entitled Anne Frank ? A History for Today, has been to forty countries since 1997, visiting Chile, Japan and Germany most recently. It has drawn more than 10 million visitors.
Júlia Sarbó of the Anne Frank House notes that the exhibition?s opening date in Hungary ? August 4 ? has special significance as this is the day the Germans took the 15-year-old Anne Frank. It is also the birthday of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, whose efforts saved many Jews from the concentration camps.
One of the highlights of the exhibition is a series of photographs of the Frank family taken by Anne Frank?s father, Otto Frank, who was an amateur photographer. The pictures were made from negatives Otto Frank sent to relatives in Basel ? relatives who survived the war.
The exhibition is set up along a timeline, with Anne Frank?s life on top and the events of WWII on the bottom.
"The whole Second World War is very difficult to understand, it?s easier to understand the fate of one person than six million murdered Jews," Sarbó says.
"Students really like it that they get a full picture of the life of Anne Frank, not just about the war, but about every day life, about the life of the Jews, about what it meant to be a Jew," she adds.
Guides for the exhibition are usually students who complete a two-day training programme to round out their understanding of the topic. The same will be true in Hungary.
"You pay better attention to somebody who is your own age than if the teacher tells you," Sarbó explains.
The exhibition will remain at the Holocaust Memorial Center until November 25, 2007. But it will remain in Hungary until 2009, says Holocaust Memorial Center spokesman Zoltán Kardos. The centre is looking for municipalities, schools and cultural institutions to host the exhibition for the next two years after it leaves Budapest.
"To this end we will offer all assistance we can."
