Carroll Elementary School in the Elk Grove Unified School District had the rare opportunity to host a traveling Anne Frank exhibition. This exhibition included over thirty, six-foot panels, that told the story of Anne Frank against the background of the Holocaust and the Second World War. Tour docents were Elk Grove Unified’s very own Carroll Elementary students, that received their training from the director of the Anne Frank House.
The international traveling exhibition “Anne Frank – a History for Today” has traveled all over the world, and is presented more than 300 times per year. The worldwide tour is coordinated by the Anne Frank House and sponsored by the Dutch Consulate, from the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Carroll Elementary was the only Elk Grove school to host this exhibit.
With this exhibition the Anne Frank House aimed to:
• Inform visitors about the history of the Holocaust from the perspective of Anne Frank and her family;
• Show visitors that cultural, ethnic, religious and political differences between people exist in every society.
• Challenge visitors to think about concepts such as tolerance, mutual respect, human rights and democracy;
• Help visitors understand that a society, where differences between people are respected, does not come about by itself. Legislation is of course necessary, but people also have to make a personal commitment.
In addition, The Bandage Project was featured. This is a ten year project, that collected over 1.5 million bandages, which have a handwritten child’s name on each one. These names are of children that were murdered during the Holocaust. Carroll Elementary collected over 20,000 of these bandages.
