The Building of our great story
Activity 8: Connecting the present and future. Anne Frank and discrimination.
Cheers guys you are almost on the finish line!
In this activity I would like to talk about a very important value that not everyone respects. I’m talking about discrimination, you know what it is? Well if you don’t know, I’d like you to research on the subject.
In this activity you have to put yourself in groups (3 people), each group will have to analyze different sentences taken from Anna Frank's diary, where she tells us about various situations she suffered from discrimination. From this sentence they will have to select one, the one that catches your attention the most and answer the following questions:
- Why did the phrase catch your eye?
- Why do you think I wrote it?
- Why do you think this happened in the society of yesteryear?
- Do you think there is a division of groups?
Remember that your answers should always be in your personal journal. Once answered, these reflections will need to be collected in common in the following online poster below.
"As long as you can look at the sky without fear, you will know that you are pure inside and that whatever happens you will be happy again"
“We are not allowed to have our own opinion. People want us to keep our mouths shut, but that doesn't stop you from having your own opinion. Everyone should be able to say what they think ”
"I have the sensation of being a caged bird whose wings have been violently ripped off, and in the absolute gloom, collides with the bars of its narrow cage when it wants to fly"
"I can't imagine how anyone can say 'I'm weak' and still be weak. After all, if you know it, why don't you fight it? Why not train character? The answer is: because it is much easier not to do it ”
“Writing a journal is a very strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I had never written anything before, but because later neither myself nor anyone will be interested in reading the reflections of a 13-year-old girl. But it does not matter. I feel like writing. ”
In this second part of the activity, together with the class group, you will have to reflect on the different types of discrimination that are experienced today.
You can be guided by the following questions:
- Have you ever witnessed an act of discrimination? How did you react?
- What do you think are the main discriminatory groups in our country?
- What can we do to stop discrimination?
All of these reflections should also be collected in another digital poster that you have below.
HELLO KITTY!
"It was Sunday night, the first day of Easter; the next day, Easter Monday. No one would come to the office. Therefore, we would not be able to move before Tuesday morning. Do you imagine? Two nights and a day that we had to spend in such anguish! None of us had any illusions: Mrs Van Daan, the most fearful, didn't even want the nightstand to be turned on, and we stood in the dark whispering and saying, "Whoa! Whoa!" at the slightest noise. Ten and a half, eleven. Any noise. Dad and Mr Van Daan came to see us alternately. Eleven and a quarter: we heard movement below. At home, only our breathing was noticeable, as we were all stuck. Footsteps were heard on the lower floors, in the private office, in the kitchen, and then ... on the staircase leading to the hidden door.
Our breathing had been cut off. Eight hearts beat about to break, as they heard the footsteps on the stairs and the shaking in the closet door. This moment is indescribable.
Now we are lost, I thought, seeing everyone led by the Gestapo that same night.
They knocked on the closet door twice, three times. Something fell, and the footsteps receded. Until then, we were saved; I heard a chattering of teeth, I don't know where; no one said a word. Silence reigned in the house, but there was light on the other side of the hidden door, visible from our landing. Had that wardrobe seemed mysterious to you? Had the police forgotten to turn off the light? Our tongues were unleashed; There was no one in the house anymore, maybe a guardian outside the door ...
I remember three things: we had exhausted all assumptions, we had trembled with terror, and we all needed to go to W.C. [...] The police were going to come back. I was prepared for it. We would have to say why we were hiding. Either we would run into good Dutch and be saved, or we would have to deal with Nazis, whose silence we would try to buy.
- You have to hide the radio - sighed the lady.
"Perhaps in the oven," replied the lord.
- Bah! If they find us, they'll find the radio too.
"In that case, they'll find Ana's diary," added Dad.
- You should burn it - proposed the most fearful of all of us.
These words and the shaking at the closet door were for me the most terrible moments of this evening.
Not my diary! My diary will not be burned but with me! [...]"
"None of us had seen danger as closely as the night before. God must have particularly protected us. Reflect for a moment: the police outside the closet door, under the electric light, and our presence went unnoticed. We have been saved. Saved again! It is all we can say. [...] Our memory has been refreshed about our status as "clandestine", our category of Jews, cloistered within four walls, without any rights and with a thousand obligations. We Jews do not have the right to assert our sentiment; it only remains for us to be strong and courageous, to accept all the inconveniences without batting an eye, to settle for what we can have, trusting in God. One day this terrible war will end, one day we will be people like the others and not just Jews.
Who has marked us like this? Who has resolved the exclusion of the Jewish people from all other peoples? Who has made us suffer so much so far? It is God who has made us so, but it will also be God who will lift us up. Yes. Despite this burden we bear, many of us still survive; one must believe that, as outlaws, the Jews will one day become an example. Who knows! Perhaps the day will come when our religion teaches good to the world, that is, to all peoples ... and that is the only reason for our suffering. [...] The other night he sensed intimately that he was going to die. I was waiting for the police. I was ready. Lend like the soldier on the battlefield. I was willing to sacrifice myself for my country. Now that I am saved, I realize what my first post-war wish is: to be Dutch. I love the Dutch. I love our country. I love your language."