Anne Frank story to be told in street theater across Amsterdam
Published June 29, 2014
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — A Dutch Jewish broadcaster is co-organizing an annual Holocaust commemoration event that will feature theater shows about Anne Frank and other victims at their former homes.
The plan by the Joodse Omroep Jewish broadcaster and its Christian partner, the Evangelische Omroep, or JO and EO respectively, was leaked last week to the Dutch blog GeenStijl.nl.
The initiative is titled “National Remembrance Walk.” Its inaugural event is set for next year, the 75th anniversary of the murder of the Dutch Jewish diarist Anne Frank at a German concentration camp, and is called “Anne Frank: One face out of millions.”
According to the slick 15-page plan which JO and EO designed for the event, it is scheduled launch on May 4, the Netherlands’ official day for Remembrance of the Dead, at several locales connected to the life of Anne Frank. Participants will walk in a silent procession from one location to the other in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam.
The project aims to produce “an integrated account of a victim and their personal story in a way which places the lessons of the past at the center of the present,” according to the leaked document, which also describes the initiative as a way to combat persistent anti-Semitic attitudes and indifference and ignorance of the Holocaust among young Dutchmen.
Remembrance Walks from 2016 onward will focus on other Holocaust victims from other cities in the Netherlands, which lost 75 percent of its Jewish population of 140,000 in the Holocaust — the highest death rate in Nazi-occupied Western Europe.
The concept, which was drawn up with assistance from the communications firm Eye2Eye Media, has Dutch actress Carice van Houten of the hit series “Game of Thrones” portraying Miep Gies, a Dutch resistance fighter who tried to save Anne Frank and her family during their two years in hiding from the Nazis in their capture in 1944. The cast will include additional Dutch actors and celebrities and will feature public singing of songs from World War II, the concept said.
But in a statement on Twitter, van Houten wrote that she had been unaware of the plan before it was leaked.
Alfred Edelstein, JO’s director, confirmed the document’s authenticity to JTA but said that “the details are still very fluid. May 4 is a long way off.”
