Forever an Icon of Hope

Point of View

- By Dorothy Delgado Novicio

The timeless musings of a 14-year-old Jewish girl recorded in a diary still bear deep resonance almost a century hence. This time, her story is told and recreated in one space here in New York City.

The Anne Frank House of Amsterdam, in partnership with the Center for Jewish History, staged The Anne Frank Exhibition, an ongoing groundbreaking exposition that brings Anne's story back to life. From her younger years in Germany up to her last days in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she and her sister Margot died, the exhaustively curated exhibition masterfully reconstructs the hiding place of Anne and seven other Jewish exiles and the events interwoven within the context of wars and the horrors of the Holocaust.

Along with my parents who are visiting New York, I attended the exhibit with the curious question of how Anne Frank's life would be presented. Is it going to be a museum-like tour? Since tickets are always sold out, will we be able to engage deeply into her story, considering the crowd?

After we were briefed on how to use the green phone-like gadget that served as our audio guide, our immersive journey through the life of a young girl whose diary has been translated to 70 languages seamlessly began. I was glad that photo and video taking were not allowed, except before and after the exhibit because then, we were able to better appreciate her saga and reflect more deeply into the episodes of Anne's life, especially when juxtaposed with the context of events in our modern world.