Harrowing but inspiring Holocaust Talk

On Tuesday 21st February, Year 8 were lucky enough to receive a visit from Gillian Walnes, founder of the Anne Frank Trust. Here are two reports from our very own Year 8 pupils to give you further details...

​On the 21st February, Cranborne Middle School was given a very insightful talk from Gillian Walnes, the founder and vice president of the Anne Frank Trust which focuses on defeating prejudice and discrimination in the UK through class and prison teaching. C.M.S was one of many lucky schools to receive an informative and influential speech on the life, death and legacy of Anne Frank.
Children from Year 8 learnt of Anne’s journey from a Nazi run, discriminative Germany to the impartial Netherlands. When the Nazis invaded Amsterdam in 1940, Anne Frank, her family and four others went into hiding in a secret room of an office building. The house can still be seen today along with the hidden annex. Unfortunately the families where discovered and sent to Auschwitz concentration/death camp and then later to Bergen-Belsen where Anne Frank died in 1945. Anne Frank’s father, however, survived and returned to Amsterdam to then discover Anne Frank’s diary. It was later published and it has now sold over 30 million copies and been translated into 67 languages.
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Although upsetting, the talk was very inspirational and it was very easy to empathise with Anne’s thoughts and feelings, being of a similar age as her. Cranborne Middle School also won an award from the Holocaust Memorial Project for a high level of teaching of the holocaust presented on the 26th January. The school was also part of an event led by Henry Schachter based on his survival of the Holocaust which was also very interesting.
Each year, students from Year 8 are given the task of producing a creative project based on their response to what they have learnt about the Holocaust. The projects this year will be on display at Bournemouth Library for the public to see and admire.
J. Jenkins

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On the 20th of February Gillian Walnes (founder of The Anne Frank Trust) came into Cranborne Middle School to tell us the story of Anne Frank. Anne Frank was born on the 12th of June 1929.The story really touched me. Anne Frank was a teenage girl that hid away with her family from the Nazi’s during the Second World War, in a secret hidden room. She stayed in one room for 2 whole years without leaving. Until one day a person spotted Anne peeking through the window and reported it to the local police. The police arrested the family and sent them off to concentration camps. Anne Frank recorded all her experiences in a note book she called Kitty. Kitty was the name of a character from a book Anne loved to read. The story helped us to empathise with Anne Frank as we are the same as she was when she wrote her famous diary. Gillian’s visit taught me a lot about how the world can be a sad place so we need to make sure for generations to come we can make people aware of the evil in the world and make a change.
B. Riley

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