Clinton Center to open Anne Frank installation on human rights

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BENJAMIN KRAIN --09/17/15--
From left, David Soos, Nathan Cathey and Ronnie Dworshak install one of five glass panels in front of the Clinton Library with quotes and information from several historical civil-rights events in Arkansas such as the slave trade, the Trail of Tears,  Japansese internment camps and the desegragation crisis of 1957. The panels will be part of a permanent installation circling a chute from Anne Frank's tree. The sapling will be planted during a special ceremony Oct. 2.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BENJAMIN KRAIN --09/17/15-- From left, David Soos, Nathan Cathey and Ronnie Dworshak install one of five glass panels in front of the Clinton Library with quotes and information from several historical civil-rights events in Arkansas such as the slave trade, the Trail of Tears, Japansese internment camps and the desegragation crisis of 1957. The panels will be part of a permanent installation circling a chute from Anne Frank's tree. The sapling will be planted during a special ceremony Oct. 2.

A permanent installation honoring Anne Frank will open in October on the grounds of the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock.

The installation, which will open Oct. 2, consists of five framed, etched glass panels "arranged to evoke the feeling of being inside a room" that are surrounded by landscaping, according to a statement.

According to the statement, the exhibit will surround the center's Anne Frank Tree sapling, taken from a chestnut tree that stood outside the Secret Annex where Frank and her family hid from the Nazis during World War II, once the sapling has matured.

The sapling is currently at a local nursery and will replace a temporary sapling on the Clinton Presidential Center grounds when it can be permanently transplanted.

"As long as this exists, how can I be sad?" Frank wrote of the chestnut tree Feb. 23, 1944, in her diary.

Two of the panels in the installation will feature quotes from Frank and former President Bill Clinton.

The three other panels will provide descriptions of human-rights events in Arkansas history: the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the Little Rock Central High School desegregation crisis of 1957.

The Clinton Foundation, the Sisterhood of Congregation B'nai Israel and the Anne Frank Center USA are bringing the exhibit to the center.

More information about the Clinton Presidential Center's permanent installation can be found at the center's website or by calling (501) 374-4242.

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