Her father Otto was one of the few survivors still in the camp when it was liberated by the Soviet Union. The joint efforts of researchers in the Auschwitz Museum and the Anne Frank House over the years have given us new insights into the conditions under which the members of the Frank family were prisoners in Auschwitz.
But there are also differences between the two museums. The Anne Frank House is a place where the focus is on one particular family that was in hiding for two years, constantly in fear of betrayal, of being discovered by the Nazis. The two hidden families could stay together and could support each other. The six helpers were reliable people and they had hope that all those in hiding could survive. Anne Frank’s diary tells the story of a girl who did not lose hope while in hiding. It contains many optimistic parts: she wrote about everyday family life, recognisable for many people today. For instance, when she describes the habits of the adults around her or when she shares her thoughts on human nature, boys, and on trivial and not so trivial things that teenagers of all times, at all places, like to talk about. Although the readers of the diary know that Anne Frank was eventually murdered by the Nazis, the Holocaust is not omnipresent in her diary. In the Anne Frank House, we are challenged to show that the persecution of the eight people in hiding in this house was part of a broader effort by the Nazis to destroy entire ethnic groups and that there was a whole machinery behind all this to which many ordinary people contributed.
Auschwitz, on the other hand, is a site of mass murder. It shows the final stage of the Holocaust, the industrial killing machine conceived to murder all the Jews of Europe. For the Auschwitz Museum the challenge is to not only show the horrific system of mass destruction, but also to humanise the victims. The victims of Auschwitz led normal lives before disaster struck. By highlighting the human dimension, by zooming in on the lives of individual people who were imprisoned in Auschwitz, by showing those who were the perpetrators and bystanders, this site has claimed its tragic place in the history of humanity.
The similarities and differences between the Auschwitz Museum and the Anne Frank House were a good starting point for a dialogue between Polish and Dutch participants of the teacher exchange programme. They visited memorial sites and educational institutions in the field of learning and teaching about the Holocaust in both countries. We also learned a lot as the organisers of the programme. First of all, it became clear that there are a great number of history and civic teachers who are highly motivated to acquire more knowledge about the Holocaust and how to teach it in an innovative way. In both countries we received many dozens of applications when we announced the possibility to participate in the exchange programme. During the programme, all participants shared their own examples of lesson plans and special projects. That was one of the great benefits of this exchange.
We also came across differences in the way the Holocaust and the events of the Second World War are taught in Poland and the Netherlands. In Poland we saw how students are motivated and facilitated by their teachers to conduct research in their own communities, resulting in exhibitions and presentations about local Jewish communities. This was very inspiring for the Dutch teachers.