Nov. 6, 2023
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How can you resist the erosion of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism? An animation, on display at the Anne Frank House since this summer, provides some guidance. At the request of museum visitors, the film can now also be seen online, on the Anne Frank House’s YouTube channel. ‘Simple but so powerful’, said visitors.
The film ties in with the temporary exhibition The Frank family in Frankfurt am Main, 1929-1933 in the Anne Frank House. The exhibition highlights the first four years of Anne Frank’s life: the period when Germany was transformed from a democratic country into a dictatorship. When Hitler and his antisemitic National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) came to power in 1933, it prompted the Frank family to flee Germany and emigrate to the Netherlands.
Lessons from the twentieth century
How can you resist the erosion of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism? A short animation on this subject has been on display in the Anne Frank House, made by creative studio Job, Joris & Mariek and inspired by the book On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder. This American historian, specialised in the Holocaust, explains in a series of ‘lessons’ how resurgent authoritarian ideology can be resisted.
‘Anne Frank was born in a democratic country, but four years later her homeland became a dictatorship; a country where antisemitic propaganda flourished and Jewish citizens were systematically deprived of their rights, and later their lives… Through the life story of Anne Frank we aim to make people aware of the profound importance of the democratic rule of law and its significance for a peaceful, equal society. What is important is the realisation that democracy is fragile; it can be seen worldwide that the democratic rule of law is under threat.’
