A children’s daycare centre in eastern Germany named after Anne Frank wants to change its name, citing openness and diversity.
Board members of the “Anne Frank” daycare centre in Tangerhütte, Saxony-Anhalt, will change its name to “World Explorers” instead.
The nursery was named in 1970 after the German-born Jewish Anne Frank, who documented life in hiding under Nazi persecution before perishing with most of her family in the Holocaust.
The name change is to honour the diversity of the kids attending the childcare centre, says the city’s mayor, Andreas Brohm.
Parents, many of migrant background, pushed for the change and organised a campaign to collect signatures for support.
The new name is “more child-friendly” and “better suited to the concept”, say the nursery’s staff.
However, the reference to immigrant parents, who claim not to understand the significance of Anne Frank’s name, is the strongest argument against the name change, says Max Privorozki, president of the state association of Jewish communities in Saxony-Anhalt.
“This argument means that the integration of these parents into German society is failing,” he told the newspaper Bild.
After the arrest, #AnneFrank lived for another six months, she ended up in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The conditions were horrible. Anne and her sister Margot became ill and they both died in February 1945, two months before the camp was liberated by British soldiers. pic.twitter.com/o3udrRWsXe
— Anne Frank House (@annefrankhouse) February 27, 2023
