Students experience history up close: Remembrance Day at the Anne Frank High School!

Students experience history up close: Remembrance Day at the Anne Frank High School!

On December 7, 2025, the students of the Anne Frank High School in Halver gathered to celebrate a special day of remembrance under the motto “A name that reminds and obliges”. Mathilda Lux, the 16-year-old student representative, led her classmates through an impressive virtual experience using VR glasses. She looked from a beam in the attic of the Anne Frank House to the first floor, which conveyed an oppressive feeling. After all, Anne Frank spent two years in hiding there, which is why the virtual experience had a very special meaning.

The event began with the animated film “Where is Anne Frank?”, which captivated the younger 5th grade students. This was the start of a day full of reflection on the concept of freedom, which Mathilda defined as “self-determination”. The students also took part in a memory game that focused on human rights and honored Anne Frank as a symbol of human values.

A variety of activities and workshops

The Anne Frank High School Halver regularly organizes such memorial days. In addition to Holocaust Remembrance Day, up to six of these events are held annually - including at the end of the war. This year the students were able to attend a variety of workshops ranging from history to creative design. The students painted over a wallpaper with negative terms and chose positive alternatives: Mathilda chose “compassion” and “empathy”.

A special highlight in the schoolyard was the opportunity to write down wishes for peace with chalk. The participants also received insights into the stages of Anne Frank's life and honored the Nazi victims from Halver. The mathematics department was also active and offered exercises on Caesar ciphering, which made the day even more varied.

An important moment was the gathering of students and teachers at 12:40 p.m. who formed in front of the building to form “60 AFG”. This honored not only Anne Frank, but also the Anne Frank High School itself, which is celebrating its 60th birthday this year.

Virtual reality and historical memories

Interest in Anne Frank has grown through innovative technologies, such as the VR app of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. This app allows users to explore the furnished rooms of the Secret Annex, which were occupied during the period 1942-1944. The loss of furniture in the actual museum, which Otto Frank, Anne's father, wanted, is impressively compensated for by the 25-minute virtual tour, which is available in seven languages. It is already offered on annefrank.org.

To complement the virtual offering, the Anne Frank House website provides multimedia information content that clearly depicts the Frank family and the contemporary history of the Holocaust. The interactive platform “Hinterhaus Online” and the “Anne Frank Tree” are just a few highlights that allow Anne's story to be experienced in a historical context. In this digital space, you can even virtually contribute a leaf to the chestnut tree that was visible from your hiding place, as bpb.de reports.

All of these activities, be it in the classroom, on the schoolyard or through digital offerings, not only take historical memory into account, but also pass on the importance of freedom and humanity to the next generation. The Anne Frank High School in Halver shows how lively and relevant Anne Frank's message still is today.