Anne Frank & Switzerland: a familial, societal and literary legacy

A replica of Anne’s diary, written in the secret annex in Amsterdam between 1942-1944.

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LIKE SO many of my contemporaries, reading Anne Frank’s diary in my early teens made a deep impression on me, as did the many cinema and TV adaptations that followed the diary’s publication in English in 1952.

Most recently, the TV production A Small Light, based on the reminiscences of Miep Gies, cast a fresh eye on life in the “secret annex” and on that of Gies, her husband, and office colleagues who helped keep the annex’s inhabitants safe and provided for.

The Swiss connection

The well-researched, broad, and sympathetically presented exhibition, Anne Frank and Switzerland, at the Château de Prangins until 29 September, goes well beyond exploring the life of the young author and her diary, which it brings to life through a reflective set piece, engaging videos, family photographs and personal letters, and a moving facsimile of the book itself.

It also highlights the story of Leni Elias-Frank (Anne’s paternal aunt) and her family’s precarious life in Basel, where they moved in 1931 to escape economic uncertainty and the rise of national socialism in Germany.

Left stateless after the Nazis revoked their citizenship, Leni, her husband, two sons and eventually her mother lived in a constant state of uncertainty, especially during the war when, the exhibition points out, Swiss asylum and refugee policy was restrictive and anti-Semitic.

Some 25,000 asylum seekers were turned away from Switzerland, while 22,000 got in, where they were supported by the wider Jewish community. Fortunately, the Frank family was allowed to stay in Basel, where they were granted citizenship in 1952.

Anne’s father Otto — the only person from the annex to survive — joined them after the war and from there successfully launched his quest to get Anne’s diary published, first in Amsterdam in 1947.

Personal family artefacts

Thanks to a partnership with the Anne Frank Fonds Basel and the Familie Frank Zentrum Frankfurt, which holds the family archives, artefacts and memorabilia, the exhibition comes to life in a very personal way.

As the exhibition notes point out, the history of the Frank family is representative of the fate of many Jewish families during World War II: exodus, flight, deportation and murder.

Her diaries are a plea for more humanity and tolerance, and a reminder never to forget the events of the Holocaust nor, the exhibition organisers want to remind us, the plight of asylum seekers.