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The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is proud to host the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra’s String Quartet to perform music inspired by Anne Frank’s Tree of Hope. It’s all part of a National Holocaust Day commemoration on January 27, 2024 at the museum. The date marks the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.
For two years during World War II, while 13-year-old Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis in her father’s office in Amsterdam, she wrote in her journal, which became the famous “Diary of Anne Frank.” Multiple times, Anne described the horse-chestnut tree that grew outside the attic window in these memorable passages from Feb. 23, 1944:
“(Peter and I) Looked out at the blue sky, the bare chestnut tree glistening with dew, the seagulls and other birds glinting with silver as they swooped through the air… ‘As long as this exists,’ I thought, ‘this sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad?’
And later, "The best remedy for those who are afraid, alone or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God."
Six months before her hideout was discovered, she wrote: “When I looked outside right into the depth of nature and God, then I was happy, really happy.”
Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She would have been 94-years-old today. The original tree was weakened by fungus and fell down in 2010 during a windstorm.
Fortunately, eleven saplings were saved from it. The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is honored and proud to be given a sapling by the Anne Frank House.
Sadie Cohen, Miss Capital City Teen, will narrate the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra’s String Quartet musical performance by reading portions of Anne Frank’s diary. The combination should serve as a moving tribute to connect the audience to the sapling of Anne’s tree that grows in the Anne Frank Peace Park in front of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. That descendant of the horse chestnut tree was planted in April of 2013 thanks to the generosity of Indianapolis philanthropists Gerald and Dorit Paul.
In addition to the performances by the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra String Quartet, there will also be actor performances of Anne’s story throughout the day within The Power of Children: Making a Difference® exhibit. The Power of Children shares the powerful stories of four extraordinary children: Anne Frank, Ruby Bridges, Ryan White and Malala Yousafzai.
