Frank exhibition on the Holocaust

7:57am Tuesday 16th August 2005

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An exhibition at Brent Cross has, for the first time, recreated the bedroom in which Anne Frank hid during the Second World War. ALEX GALBINSKI speaks to the brains behind it, and finds out how its themes are relevant today.

"The Annexe is an ideal place to hide in. It may be damp and lopsided, but there is probably not a more comfortable hiding place in all of Amsterdam. No, in all of Holland.

"Up until now our bedroom, with its blank walls, was very bare. Thanks to Father - who brought my entire postcard and film star collection here beforehand - and a brush and a pot of glue, I was able to plaster the walls with pictures. It looks much more cheerful."

One of the books Nelson Mandela smuggled into the high-security prison on Robben Island was the diary of Anne Frank, the German-Jewish teenager who hid from the Nazis in an annexe of rooms above her father's office in Amsterdam.

From the bedroom she shared with Fritz Pfeffer, Anne described her experiences of life in Nazi-occupied Holland in the diary she received for her 13th birthday.

This room has now been re-created as part of an exhibition at Brent Cross, which presents the life and death of one of the world's most renowned diarists.

The exhibition, Anne Frank + You, uses excerpts from the diary interspersed with contemporary and historical film footage, including film of Anne herself and teenagers today talking about their feelings of conflict and racism.

With no definitive start or end, people are encouraged to look at the screens of photographs, exhibits and listen to the soundtrack in their own time.

The heart of the exhibition is Anne's room, which is reached after walking through a deliberately darkened tunnel, showing images from the Holocaust and other genocides since 1945, such as Rwanda, Cambodia and, most recently, Darfur, in Sudan.

The room is claustrophobic, but the walls are adorned with postcards of glamorous stars of that age, a reminder that even with great danger around her, a degree of normal teenage fantasy remained in her life.

Actress Ciara O'Connor is heard on tape reading from the diary, as if Anne was writing the words or possibly reading them back in her head.

The original room has had all furniture removed at the wish of Anne's father, Otto Frank.

"After the Anne Frank House in Holland was restored, they asked me if the rooms should be furnished again," he said.

"But I answered, 'No.' During the war everything was taken and I want to leave it like that."

And the replica in Brent Cross adheres to this principal.

Her room in Amsterdam has been kept as a relic, a historical artefact conserved to remind others of the tragedy of the Holocaust.

And while the exhibition in Brent Cross has sought to recreate the room, the replica tries to combine art and history.

Joining forces with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, the Anne Frank Trust UK brought in acclaimed designer Stephen Greenberg, of Metaphor, who designed the Holocaust exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London, and award-winning television producer and director Jon Blair, whose Anne Frank Remembered won an Oscar, as well as an International Emmy.

"In the house where they hid in Amsterdam, it's a shuffle-through experience as so many people want to go and see it," explained Mr Greenberg.

"The idea of the room almost has more impact than the actual room.

"The whole point of the exhibition is a juxtaposition of contemporary voices with that of Anne Frank. It features Muslims, blacks, whites and Asians, talking about multiculturalism and separatism.

"It's left to the young people themselves to make their minds up - they're not fed a line."

Gillian Walnes, executive director of the Anne Frank Trust UK, said: "The exhibition goes through Anne's diary by an unusual route.

"It doesn't just show the history of her life and times, but brings young people into her story through issues that affect young people's lives today.

"She speaks about her hopes, fears and dreams, and it's a way for young people to open up about their dreams in 21st Century Britain.

"We hope they will stop and think about their own attitudes and behaviour."

Split in two parts, historical and contemporary, the exhibition also features the Nike video in which French black footballer Thierry Henry talks about his experiences of racism in the sport, alongside other black and white footballers.

Exhibits include a replica of the diary Anne wrote in the annexe, a can of the Zyklon B poison gas that killed millions in the gas chambers, and Anne's family's registration cards for the Westerbork transit camp.

The exhibition is aimed at teenagers, and pulls out themes from Anne's diary such as identity, prejudice and racism, conflict and peace, moral responsibility and freedom and democracy.

Text messages and comic strip influences are used to challenge and clash with the older footage, hinting at the enduring nature of evil - the means of communication may move on, but the genocide and mass murder is still there.

The trust, an educational charity that promotes positive attitudes in young people towards differences, will take the exhibition on tour around the UK before returning to London next June.

The choice of a shopping centre for such an exhibition - funding for which came from the Big Lottery, the Pears Foundation, and the Association of Jewish Refugees, amongst others - may raise some eyebrows, but its organisers were invited there as part of the centre's two-week celebration of the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

They are keen to stress that the issues Anne writes about are still relevant in our society. Mr Greenberg believes the murder of 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence in April 1993 and the killing of black Liverpool teenager Anthony Walker, who died on July 29 this year, are a poignant reminder of the themes explored by the exhibition.

"It shows you how alive these issues are. I wouldn't say it's the most optimistic experience," said Mr Greenberg. "There's no happy ending."

There certainly wasn't for Anne, who wrote in her diary in April 1944: "One day this terrible war will be over. The time will come when we'll be people again and not just Jews." Anne and her family were found and deported. She died, alongside her sister, in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, aged 15.

Mr Greenberg wants exhibition-goers to take on board Anne's message.

"I just hope that they will see that life is complex and that unless you engage with the other, you are never going to get anywhere," he said.