Anne Frank: A History for Today at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Light from the Shadows

January 8 to 28, 2015

70^thAnniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. This exhibition is produced in co-operation with the Anne Frank House, Amsterdam, the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde (TNM).

In 2015, we commemorate the end of World War II. Seventy years ago, the world was celebrating peace. Also seventy years ago, in March, Anne Frank, a fifteen-year-old teenager, died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, an innocent victim, like millions of others, of this cataclysmic event.

On this occasion, the Museum is presenting the educational exhibition Anne Frank – A History for Today, in collaboration with the Anne Frank House, Amsterdam (in partnership with Veterans Affairs Canada – Quebec Bureau), and the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Museum. A set of twelve photographs by the Montrealer Laszlo Mezei, recently taken at Auschwitz-Birkenau, will complete the presentation. Many Holocaust survivors sought refuge in Montreal after World War II (proportionately, Montreal ranks third in the world, after Tel Aviv and New York City, for the number of Holocaust survivors it received).

The exhibition Anne Frank: A History for Today imposes on us the duty to remember, so that we may retain the lessons of the past and ensure that such horrors are never repeated. It tells the story of a teenager whose diary, published after her death, remains one of the most read, played and filmed stories in the world. Anne Frank wrote her diary over a period of slightly more than two years, while she hid with her family in an Amsterdam house to escape from the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Through the pages of this diary, written in the difficult context of hiding, crowding and danger, we discover an expressive, energetic and extroverted adolescent who imagines her future with hope and optimism, despite the tumult surrounding her. On entering the gallery, visitors have access to some touching video testimonies by Montreal survivors. They have been gathered by the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Museum, whose entire collection comes from 5,000 survivors who live in Montreal. A bit further on, on loan from the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Museum, a striped prisoner’s uniform from the Auschwitz extermination camp bears touching witness to the human drama. On the gallery walls, some thirty illustrated panels tell the story of Anne Frank and her family in the context of World War II, which turned their world upside-down.

January 8 to 28, 2015
Studio Art & Education Michel de la Chenelière
Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion

For more information: www.mbam.qc.ca or 514-285-2000