From generation to generation. From culture to culture
The Anne Frank exhibition opened today at the Sydney Jewish Museum…and its first visitors were members of a family from North Queensland.
All photos: Henry Benjamin
Stephanie ond Olivia Slinger – first visitors
Leanne and Jason Slinger arrived at the museum as soon as its doors opened, heading straight for the Anne Frank exhibit. With them were their two little daughters 4-yr-old Olivia and 2½-yr-old Stephanie. The Slingers took their children from the beginning of the exhibit’s timeline to its end, showing them special authentic items enhancing the travelling unit added by curator Roslyn Sugarman.
Jason Slinger told J-Wire: “I learned about Anne Frank at school in Brisbane and Leanne was taught the story at her school in Bundaberg. We travel back to Mackay this afternoon but when we learned the Jewish Museum had this on show from today we decided it had to be seen before we left for home.”
The exhibit was officially opened by the Dutch consul Willem Cosijn following a rendering of the theme from Schindler’s List by Ashleigh Vissel on her great-grandfather’s violin. Her grandfather, Dutch-born Jozef Vissel, regained his father’s violin on a visit to the Netherlands where he had lived in an orphanage as a child and adolescent. Vissel, a renowned photographer responsible for the iconic image of Sydney Opera House architect
Mackay visitors: Jason and Leanne Slinger with Olivia and Stephanie
Jorn Utzon whose moving hands presented the look of an olive wreath. He gave the instrument to Ashleigh who played the Schnindler theme under the Arbeit Macht Frei sign at Auschwitz-Birkenau where her great-grandfather, the violin’s original owner had been murdered. Ashleigh Vissel was at Masada College at the time and was participating in the March of the Living.
The audience at the opening event also heard 15-yr-old Gemma Scheinberg read an excerpt from Anne Frank’s Diary and 87-year-old Boyd Klap tell the story of the exhibition. He has been responsible for its movements in New Zealand and Australia for five years.
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- Museum CEO Norman Seligman and curator Roslyn Sugerman
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- Gemma Scheinberg
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- WillemCosijn
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- Jozef Vissel
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- Ashleigh Vissel
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- Boyd Klap
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- Museum president Professor Gus Lehrer
To learn more about the Anne Frank Exhibition, watch Boyd Klap in the video below….
