SSU Holocaust Memorial Recipient of an Anne Frank Sapling

The newly created Holocaust and Genocide Memorial Grove at Sonoma State University is 1 of 11 locations nation wide to be receiving a three-foot tall sapling, grown from the horse chestnut tree that often lifted Anne Frank's spirits as she hid from the Nazis during World War II. The sapling will be planted at the foot of the Erna and Arthur Salm Holocaust & Genocide Memorial Grove at SSU and will have a sign carrying words written by Anne Frank in her diary: "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."

The Anne Frank Center USA (AFC) together with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam chose SSU because "The panel felt that you site 'connected all the dots' by writing an inspiring proposal, drawing all aspects of tolerance together. Your Center for the study of the Holocaust, created by Dr. John Steiner (Dachau and Auschwitz survivor), your membership including Hans Angress, a Berlin Jew who attended school with Anne Frank, and your inclusion of educational programs on other genocides in the world. We particularly like the concept that the sapling would be placed near the Martin Luther King sculpture - and the fact that both were born in 1929, both slain by ignorance and hatred - both lives committed to contribute to human dialogue. And of course, your site plan and ability to maintain the tree on your premises was also very good!" Elaine Leeder, Dean of School of Social Sciences, claims that the addition of the sapling to the SSU campus will “solidify the SSU campus as a major center on the West Coast for the study of the Holocaust and genocide” and “will provide eventually a vast canopy under which the University Holocaust Lecture Series and the academic and educational programs throughout Northern California will continue for generations."


http://www.youtube.com/watchv=hrYMPwK6HIk&feature=player_embedded

Anne Frank found comfort in looking at the chestnut tree behind the Secret Annex. She often looked at it from the attic window, and she wrote about it in her diary. In this video you see the chestnut tree filmed with the Secret Annex in the background and from the attic window of the Secret Annex.

For more information about Holocaust and Genocide Memorial Grove visit
http://www.sonoma.edu/holocaust/grove/