Our educational programmes and products are designed to encourage young people to reflect on social developments, then and now, with a focus on prejudice, discrimination, racism and antisemitism. These programmes and products are always based on Anne Frank’s life story.
Anne Frank Journal 2022
Despite some setbacks, such as a paper shortage, we were able to publish another new Anne Frank Journal for grade 7/8 in primary schools, this time on the theme of Friendship. We were able to put together a comprehensive educational package including the new book Vergeet mij niet (‘Forget Me Not’) by Janny van der Molen and an individual workbook for each pupil on friendship. Thanks to the support of the Ministry of Health, a more in-depth digital feature that connects to the journal can be found on the LessonUp teacher platform.
Tackling football-related racism
In 2022, football in the Netherlands was back in full swing. And with football, the negative sides of this sport also returned: discrimination, antisemitism, racism and other forms of exclusion were once again in the spotlight. And with that came the demand from the football world to make use of the Anne Frank House's successful approaches.
Thanks in part to the support of the Ministries of Health and Social Affairs, the projects continue to grow and reach more young people, young footballers and supporters. With our Fair Play workshop, the Anne Frank House reached almost 2,000 young people in 2022. Through football clubs, young people were offered a lesson in which they were introduced to different forms of discrimination and exclusion. They carried out assignments – individually and in groups – in which they decided what they thought of these incidents and how they saw their own role in them. This preventive approach raises awareness of what discrimination is, its effects and how one’s own actions can have a positive impact. New partnerships were also established in 2022, including with ADO Den Haag and Roda JC, and an old partnership was rekindled with the Feyenoord Foundation.
2022 also saw partnerships with three professional football clubs for combating verbal abuse. In the case of FC Utrecht and Feyenoord Rotterdam, this involves ongoing long-term collaborations. Both clubs have for some time had a well-functioning educational approach around antisemitic chants. In the process, small groups of fanatical supporters are taken on a thematic tour of the Jewish history of their city and club and meet fellow Jewish supporters. These encounters show them the actual effects of such chants. A similar approach was developed with FC Den Bosch in 2022, but focusing on racist chants. The first two pilot days with FC Den Bosch fans have now taken place.
Second report on Democratic Awareness in the Netherlands
After the corona crisis there is still broad support among Dutch people for parliamentary democracy and the rule of law. But this support for democracy and fundamental rights in society is not unconditional. A significant minority is willing to temporarily set aside parliamentary democracy in order to deal with urgent and complex problems. Among young people in the 18-24 age group, this tendency has become stronger. This is shown by the study Democratic Awareness in the Netherlands, published on 29 April 2022, which the Anne Frank House commissioned from the Verwey-Jonker Institute in late 2021.
The fluid and opportunistic support for fundamental democratic rights was already visible during the first survey conducted by the Verwey-Jonker Institute in 2019 as part of this long-term research. The corona crisis seems to have amplified this effect. Such fluid and opportunistic support undermines the pillars of our democratic rule of law.
‘Worryingly, 18 to 24-year-olds in particular had a higher receptivity to anti-democratic thinking in 2021 than in 2019. This comes as no surprise, as they had been hit extra hard by measures such as school lockdowns and restrictions around sports and going out due to the corona crisis. It is important to make people, and especially young people, aware of the enormous importance of the democratic state under the rule of law and its significance for a peaceful, equal society. This doesn’t just apply to the Netherlands: in many countries the free, democratic constitutional state is under increasing pressure.’
Travelling exhibitions
After the pandemic the global work of the Anne Frank House got back on track. By 2022 there had been 292 exhibitions in 27 countries about Anne Frank and the history of her time. Guided tours, mostly provided by young people, took place at each location. Over 250,000 people visited the exhibition.
The Anne Frank House trains young people to show their peers around the exhibition. The new guides learn about the content and background of the exhibition, how best to transmit the information and how to address current social developments. This format, known as peer education, is highly successful in involving the young people visiting the exhibition.
At the initiative of the Tayar Foundation for Jewish Heritage, a tour of the exhibition Let me be myself – The life story of Anne Frank began on 24 February 2022 in Valletta, Malta. In preparation, students visiting the exhibition received an online lesson developed by the Tayar Foundation together with the Anne Frank House. The exhibition was on display in four locations in Malta until the summer of 2022.
With support from the Canadian government, a series of activities began in 2022 in areas predominantly inhabited by Canada’s First Nations. In April, the exhibition Learning with Anne Frank, which had been specially translated into Inuktitut (the language of the Inuit), was opened at the Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum. Local young people were trained by the Anne Frank House to guide their peers around. After this the exhibition was shown in other locations in northern Canada. Fifteen online tours of the virtual Anne Frank House were provided through the Connected North educational programme. The participating schools were all located in the sparsely populated areas of Canada.
The Anne Frank House has been active in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe since the 1990s. Dozens of exhibition presentations were organised in these countries in 2022. Here too, young people acted as peer guides. As a follow-up, several young guides participated in the activities of the Anne Frank Youth Network. In multi-day seminars they learned how to run Anne Frank projects themselves, using concepts and materials provided by the Anne Frank House.
Teachers
We reached a large number of teachers with our products and projects in 2022. We provided a total of 66 training courses, online or on location, including Teaching about the Holocaust and Teaching about prejudice and stereotypes.
Stories that Move - a toolbox against discrimination is now available in nine languages. Spanish and Catalan were added in 2022. In 2022 we presented 24 webinars in Dutch or English. Teachers were introduced to the possibilities of the toolbox during the webinars. eTwinning, the EU programme aimed at international youth exchanges, is a key partner in organising webinars for teachers.
The Anne Frank House Teachers’ Team, consisting of primary, secondary and senior secondary school teachers, met four times in 2022. The Teachers’ Team serves as a sounding board and contributed to, among other things, the evaluation of the teaching materials for the Anne Frank Video Diary and the teaching materials for Anne's World.
Starting from the school year 2022-2023, we launched our own LessonUp channel; a platform for digital interactive lessons. Our channel features 12 lessons for primary and secondary schools. The lessons focus on Anne Frank and the diary, or deal with themes such as antisemitism, prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination. Some lessons are also available in English, German, Spanish and Portuguese.
Youth Team
Every year the Anne Frank House recruits young people for the Anne Frank House Youth Team. The young people learn about the Second World War and the Holocaust, about prejudice and discrimination, and about holding a dialogue, responding to hate speech and organising a project. In small teams, the young people work on project plans. This concept has now been in place for 10 years.
In 2022 a special programme was put together for 22 alumni: young people who have been part of the Dutch Youth Team over the past decade. Four gatherings were organised, each focusing on a different theme: freedom, identity, dialogue and connection. These meetings included educational components, feedback sessions and thematic workshops led by experts and youth workers. With the alumni programme we aim to connect young people and deepen their knowledge and skills. Their feedback is also important. We submit their questions, such as how we can involve young people in our work in the future and how we can further strengthen the Youth Team Network. One of the key outcomes was the implementation of an alumni-led mentoring programme: alumni will mentor new Youth Team participants and provide workshops.
In June 20 young people from 16 European countries met in Amsterdam to give further shape to the international Anne Frank Youth Network. The participants were alumni of our international youth network and shared their experiences as peer-to-peer educators. They also advised us on the redesign of the youth network after the pandemic. Two participants were from Ukraine. After the meeting they returned to their country at war…
Police
In 2022 the 30 team leaders of the Anne Frank House police team came together five times to discuss challenges related to equal treatment, discrimination and diversity in society. At these networking days, organised by the Anne Frank House, various experts shared their knowledge on topics including policing in wartime, fascism at home and abroad and racism and the abuse of power at work. The team leaders were equipped with the knowledge and skills to open up various topics for discussion within the police organisation.
In the summer of 2022 seven police professionals took part in the four-day More effective dialogue training programme. They were trained in conducting individual and group conversations on sensitive topical issues such as discrimination, prejudice, antisemitism and racism. As part of a peer-to-peer (professional-to-professional) approach, the Anne Frank House aims to ensure that the trained discussion leaders then engage with colleagues and a constructive dialogue between police colleagues ensues.
An ‘Inspiration Day’ was organised for teachers working at the Police Academy. The aim was to increase historical awareness and contribute to the moral compass of students at the Police Academy. During the inspiration day teachers were given educational tools and exchanged views in student learning dialogues on topics such as discrimination, prejudice and inclusion. Among other things, historical film clips about the Dutch police in World War II were featured.
Activities in Ukraine
After the outbreak of war, our cooperation partners in Ukraine could no longer carry out their planned activities. We remain in contact with our partner organisation TolerSpace, with which we undertook many educational activities until the war, including youth activities, teacher training and the roll-out of the Stories that Move toolbox against discrimination. Two TolerSpace team members were able to attend the international team meeting for Stories that Move in Bratislava in the autumn, and some Ukrainian teachers could participate in an expert meeting in Poland.
Some TolerSpace employees have fled Ukraine and are now working online from another country, while others are still in Ukraine. Air strikes, power cuts and the loss of loved ones are their daily reality. The same applies to teachers in Ukraine. They teach traumatised young people, and have had traumatic experiences themselves.
We are trying to best support TolerSpace colleagues and teachers from their network by providing webinars on Anne Frank and how her life story and diary can be of support and inspiration to their students. In Stories that Move we include video clips of two Ukrainian young people, one living in Kyiv and the other in Poland.
‘Six weeks after the war began, I sat in on a webinar with about 30 Ukrainian educators to talk to them about opportunities to work with Anne Frank's diary. I started by saying: ‘I am speaking for the first time to educators teaching in a war zone. I have no experience of this.’ To which one of the teachers replied ‘Neither do we’. I was deeply moved by the discussion that followed, and was happy to hear that our educational material was very welcome.’