arts&life

exhibit

Through
The Eyes Of

Anne Frank

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A new exhibit lets

viewers see the Frank

family experience

through the lens of

the rest of the world.

details

“Anne Frank: A History for Today”
will be on view through June 4 at
the Holocaust Memorial Center
in Farmington Hills. Reservations
are needed for the docent
presentations at 1:30 p.m. Feb.
19, April 9, May 7 and June 4.
Exhibition and presentation fees
are part of admission prices,
$5-$8. (248) 553-2400, ext. 110;
holocaustcenter.org.

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February
Februar
ry 2 • 20
2017
7

T

he history of an embroi-
dered tablecloth, on
display at the Holocaust
Memorial Center in Farmington
Hills, enlarges the emotional
impact of the visiting exhibit
“Anne Frank: A History for
Today.”
The creative handiwork calls
attention to a grouping of keep-
sakes held by Esther Posner, a
Southfield resident who sur-
vived by hiding with her fam-
ily during World War II in the
Netherlands. It was there that
the Frank diary was written,
describing events now made
more visual through curated
photos on tour.
Arranged along a timeline
reaching from 1914 to 1945,
Frank family pictures are on one
side of a line and linked with
political pictures on the other
side — together giving a fuller
sense of the dangers being faced
by individuals.

j jn
n

Anne Frank at her desk

“When I speak to school audi-
ences about my Shoah experi-
ences, I say: ‘My story is the
Anne Frank story with a happy
ending,’” explains Posner, who
has provided her family photos
to accompany the cloth. “I went

into hiding with my parents,
and we survived.”
Posner first was confined
to one room in the home of a
Dutch family in 1943, when she
was 6 years old. Restricted to an
upstairs bedroom about 10 by
12 feet, Posner passed the time
by listening to adult conversa-
tions, watching card games and
witnessing how the women
used their sewing skills to barter
for food as maneuvered by the
homeowner, who pretended to
be the seamstress.
“When my mother worked
on her tablecloth, she had a
ring of admirers — my father,
grandfather, aunt and my aunt’s
mother-in-law,” Posner recalls
of the people sheltered together
in that limited space. “Even the
underground workers watched
her progress.”
As the family had to take
refuge in other homes and
eventually were freed by the

Canadians, Posner’s mother
held on to the tablecloth and
brought it to America as the
family relocated in the late
1940s.
“My mother had the emuna
[ faith] that she would survive
and again have a table that
needed a cover,” Posner says.
“What the tablecloth repre-
sented was her faith in Jewish
survival and continuity.”
The formal exhibit, on view
through June 4, was developed
by the Anne Frank House in
Amsterdam and sponsored
by the Anne Frank Center for
Mutual Respect headquartered
in New York. It is further supple-
mented by a model of the build-
ing where the Franks stayed
and a sapling from the chestnut
tree that inspired Anne Frank,
now growing at the Holocaust
Memorial Center as one of 11
sites worldwide chosen for a
sapling.

