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To coincide with the 65th anniversary of betrayal and arrest of Holocaust and literary heroine Anne Frank on 4th August 1944, Chester Cathedral is proud to bring the famous Anne Frank + You exhibition to Chester Cathedral from Wednesday 3 to Thursday 24 February 2010, generously funded by Cheshire West and Chester Council.

Poignantly the very last words that Anne Frank wrote in her soon to become world famous diary were, “I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if…if only there were no other people in the world.”

The betrayal and arrest of the Frank family came on a sunny August day just three days after she wrote those words. Anne spent the last seven months of her life in concentration camps, dying of disease and starvation in the notorious Bergen-Belsen camp aged just 15. She succumbed only three weeks before its liberation by the British army.

Gillian Walnes of the Anne Frank Trust said:  “Despite the tragedy of Anne’s short life, this exhibition brings with it a powerful message for today’s young.  At the heart of the historic section of the exhibition is an almost life size replica of Anne’s bedroom in hiding. However the outer panels talk about issues affecting our lives today.  There is a strong message of hope – that one person can make a difference.”

The Anne Frank + You exhibition will be on show from Wednesday 3 to Thursday 24 February 2010.  A range of cultural and educational events will accompany the exhibition.  It is brought to Chester Cathedral by the Anne Frank Trust UK.

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Anne Frank Exhibition

Notes for editors

  
1.  After 25 months in hiding, the Frank family and four other people hiding with them were discovered on August 4, 1944, and sent to death camps, where all but Anne’s father Otto Frank perished.  Both Anne and her sister Margot died of typhus and hunger in Bergen-Belsen.   Anne would have celebrated her 80th birthday in June this year.

2.  The Anne Frank Trust is the UK partner of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.  Set up in 1990 by family and friends of the late Otto Frank, the Anne Frank Trust UK draws on the power of Anne’s life and diary to challenge prejudice and reduce hatred, encouraging people to embrace positive attitudes, responsibility and respect for others.  It does this through exhibitions and educational programmes that go to schools, communities, prisons and most recently hospitals, throughout the UK, having been seen by 3 million people to date.  To many, a visit to an Anne Frank exhibition creates such a powerful impression that it becomes a catalyst for ongoing social activism. 

3.  Anne’s diary was discovered after the family’s arrest by their helper in hiding Miep Gies, who looked after it in the hope she could return it to Anne after the war.  Miep Gies celebrated her 100th birthday in 2009 and died earlier this year and the Anne Frank Trust created a special award in her honour, won in 2009 by Nicole Drybergh.