Metro

The staff of

MB
Jewelers

Wishes
everyone
a happy
and
healthy
New
Year!

Morry,
Chris
& Toni

Anne Frank's Tree

HMC plans exhibit around sapling from famous chestnut.

Alan Hitsky
Associate Editor

T

he 150-year-old chestnut tree
gave hope to teenaged Anne
Frank while she hid from the
Nazis for two years with her family in
Amsterdam.
While a storm toppled the diseased
tree last month, it will live on at 150
sites around the world.
The Holocaust Memorial Center
Zekelman Family Campus (HMC) in
Farmington Hills is one of 11 U.S. sites
designated last year by the Anne Frank
Center USA in New York to receive sap-
lings from the diseased tree. The sap-
lings will not be delivered for at least
two more years. They are quarantined
to ensure they are disease-free.
The HMC and Seattle are the only
Holocaust centers selected. Other U.S.
sites include Ground Zero in New York
and the White House garden.
Meanwhile, HMC supporters are
already planning an appropriate set-
ting for the sapling.
"The tree represented hope and tol-
erance," said Gail Rosenbloom Kaplan
of Farmington Hills, a longtime HMC
volunteer and its 2009 dinner honoree.
The HMC used the hope and tolerance
theme in its application for a sapling.
Plans call for the tree to be planted
in a small, hidden garden next to the
HMC building. Visitors will not be able
to walk into the garden, Kaplan said.

Anne Frank's tree

Like Anne Frank, they will only be able
to see it from a window.
The proposed Anne Frank exhibit
might include a staircase, an attic rep-
lica of the room where the Franks hid
and an electronic copy of the Diary of
Anne Frank for visitors to view.
Kaplan said fundraising has not
yet begun for the project because
delivery of the sapling is at least two
years off. But she said the project was
very important to the HMC because
many of its visitors are non-Jewish
students. Many children have not
heard of the Holocaust, she said, but
many know Anne Frank because her
diary has become required reading
at many schools.
"The tree will highlight that Anne
Frank spoke for all people Kaplan
said.

From The Diary
On Feb. 23, 1944, Anne Frank wrote:
Nearly every morning I go to the attic
to blow the stuffy air out of my lungs,
from my favourite spot on the floor I
look up at the blue sky and the bare
chestnut tree, on whose branches little
raindrops shine, appearing like silver,
and at the seagulls and other birds as
they glide on the wind. As long as this
exists, I thought,
and I may live
to see it, this
sunshine, the
cloudless skies,
while this lasts
I cannot be
unhappy

Anne Frank

Tickets Required

Holocaust Center begins charging for admission.

Alan Hitsky
Associate Editor

F

JEWELRY DESIGN

248.356.7007

Bloomfield Township

in Bloomfield Plaza at Maple Rd.
& Telegraph

www.mbjewelrydesign.com

32

September 2 • 2010

or the first time in its 26-year
history, the Holocaust Memorial
Center has begun charging to
visit the HMC on the Zekelman Family
Campus in Farmington Hills.
Stephen M. Goldman, executive direc-
tor of the HMC, said the agency's board
agonized over the decision and studied
admission fees at other Detroit-area
museums and at Holocaust centers
around the country.
"We have a written policy that no one

— either an individual or a school —
will ever be turned away because they
can't afford to pay,' Goldman said.
But he guessed that the new policy
could bring in between $50,000 and
$150,000 in revenue for the Orchard
Lake Road facility.
The new admission rates went into
effect Sept. 5: $8 for adults; $6 for
seniors and college students; $5 for
other students; $3 per person for school
groups.
Visitors in uniform (police, fire,
rescue and military), and teachers pre-
paring for a school visit are free, as are

those who have an HMC membership.
"When teachers call about a group
tour," said Goldman, "they always ask,
`How much is it?" They have to pay for
the other area museums that schools
visit, such as the Detroit Institute of
Arts, the Detroit Science Center and the
Henry Ford.
Some 55,000 students visited the
HMC last year and between 30,000 and
45,000 adults. Goldman said the Florida
Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg is
the facility closest in size to the HMC,
and Florida charges $14 for adults and
$7 for children. El

