This photo of Anne Frank greets visitors at the Anne Frank Exhibit and Reception.
PC: Spark Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution
The officers of the Philippine Consulate General in Honolulu, upon invitation of the Honorary Consul of the Netherlands Henk Rogers, attended the Anne Frank Exhibition and Reception at the Kenoi Auditorium of the East-West Center in Honolulu on 17 January 2018.
The event was hosted by the Honorary Consulate of Netherlands, in partnership with the University of Hawaii at Manoa Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution.
The Anne Frank exhibit details the life of Anne Frank, a German-born, young diarist and one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust and World War II. She gained fame posthumously with the publication of The Diary of a Young Girl, wherein she documented her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.
Based on the peer-to-peer education model, trained student docents from Honolulu high schools guided the participants as they told Anne Frank’s story. The international exhibit is currently on a world-wide tour coordinated by the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.
Over 100 guests representing Hawaii’s consular corps, the academe, students and Hawaii government officials, including Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, attended the standing-room only reception. Honorary Consul Rogers, Consul General Gerbert Kunst of the Consulate General of the Netherlands in San Francisco, Dr. Maya Soetero-Ng, Director of the Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, and half-sister of former US President Barack Obama, gave inspirational remarks during the program.
The exhibit also included panels conveying the story of Queen Lili’uokalani, the first queen and last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, ruling from 1891 until the overthrow of the kingdom on 17 January 1893. Queen Liliu’okalani’s life story, which was one of discrimination and exclusion, but also one of hope and determination, drew parallelism with Anne Frank’s.
The Philippine Consulate General was represented at the event by Consuls Roberto T. Bernardo and Joyleen E. Santos, Vice Consul Andrea Christina Q. Caymo and Cultural Officer Ma. Romina R. Bautista. (END).
