NEW ROCHELLE, NY — New Rochelle High School’s Donald Baughman Museum of Arts and Culture premiered a new exhibit on Thursday: “Anne Frank: A History of Today.”
The traveling exhibit, which features journal entries and photographs of the German-born Holocaust victim and her family, is curated by the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect.
Students from New Rochelle High School were trained by the Center, and will be responsible for giving tours to visitors of the exhibit.
“You are the most blessed community,” Steven Goldstein, the Center’s executive director, said at the exhibit’s opening. “To have a school like this, filled with diversity; filled with students who have an intellectual curiosity, a hunger, and a brilliance, and a passion for social justice.”
“To keep the memory of the Holocaust alive, and to make sure that injustices, and horrors don’t happen again in this world, we need to pass it to the next generation,” Goldstein said.
Gloria Stainkamp, 92, of New Rochelle said she was thankful for the exhibit, and optimistic about the lessons it would teach.
“It’s a reminder of man’s inhumanity to man,” she said.
Exhibit docent and junior Emonty Barnes said he had learned only part of the story of Anne Frank in elementary school.
“Having a visual of how she lived made me more appreciative,” he said.
The exhibit, which is presented by the New Rochelle Fund for Educational Excellence, will run until Dec. 7. Visitors are welcome weekdays, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Events are free, and open to the public.
