Community Corner

West Bloomfield Couple Supports Holocaust Center Anne Frank Exhibit

The Farmington Hills museum honors Viola and Garry Kappy during a Sunday dedication.

West Bloomfield residents Viola and Garry Kappy were honored Sunday during the dedication of the Holocaust Memorial Center's newest permanent exhibit, The Viola and Garry Kappy Anne Frank Tree Exhibit & Garden in Farmington Hills. 
 
Located at the entrance to the Harry and Wanda Zekelman International Institute of the Righteous, the exhibit revolves around a sapling from the white chestnut tree that brought Anne Frank solace as she and her family hid from the Nazis during World War II. It features photographs and scrolling quotations from the diary, culminating in a challenge and call to action.

“This tree and the surrounding exhibit exemplifies hope for humanity,” Holocaust Memorial Center Executive Director Stephen Goldman said. “As is our goal with all of the exhibits we bring into the museum, be it permanent or temporary, we want to teach our visitors through the examples of those who risked their lives to save others, and ask them to react to contemporary challenges such as racism, intolerance, bullying and prejudice.”
 
The ceremony also included an interview with Irene Butter, a Holocaust survivor who knew Anne Frank and music by Hazzan David Propis.
 
The sapling is one of 11 to be planted in the U.S. from the nearly 200-year-old tree and was awarded in 2009 by The Anne Frank Center USA in a process spearheaded by Holocaust Memorial Center librarian and archivist Feiga Weiss and local artist Gail (Rosenbloom) Kaplan.
 
Educational programming designed for children and adults, which began in June, continues Oct. 6, with the Anne Frank Journaling Project. Children fifth grade and up and their families will have the opportunity to meet a Holocaust survivor, explore the new Anne Frank Tree Exhibit & Garden and have the opportunity to start their own journals.
 
The award-winning documentary, Anne Frank Remembered, will be shown Oct. 13 at the Holocaust Memorial Center and Oct. 15 at the Student Center Auditorium on the campus of Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. The 1996 winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature tells the story of the Frank family through previously unreleased archival material, contemporary interviews and footage filmed in the actual locations from Anne Frank’s life.

Learn more by calling 248-553-2400 or visiting holocaustcenter.org.

Source: Holocaust Memorial Center press release


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