Otselic Valley Central School District

Thursday, January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s also an opportunity to to show you the “Secret Annex,” the house in which diary-writer Anne Frank hid with her family and a few others for two years during the German occupation of the Netherlands. Your tour guide is Otselic Valley 8th grader Brianna Patterson, and she has a lot to show you. Brianna, with the generous assistance of her parents and her two brothers, created a multi-story, two-sided building, furnishings included, out of cardboard and found materials. Every section has meaning, and Brianna can tell you about each room. The building is a wonder, beginning with what was the first floor office of Otto Frank’s spice and jam company. But pull back the bookcase – Brianna has a lever for that – and you see an entrance to secret stairs that opened onto two floors and an attic that became the Franks’ hidden home beginning in 1942. You’ll find bedrooms, sinks, boxes, throw rugs, paintings, and even discrete lights. Look closely for the diary on a small desk in the corner. Brianna used cardboard to replicate an autograph book Anne received for her 13th birthday and started using as a diary. That small gift was the start of something important. Thanks to loyal employees of Mr. Frank’s who retrieved the diary and loose papers when the Franks were arrested and sent to concentration camps, we now know what life was like during that time, seen through the eyes of a teenager. Anne Frank’s writing was published as The Diary of a Young Girl through the efforts of her father, the only “Secret Annex” resident who survived, and has now been translated into 70 languages. This epic model of the “Secret Annex” is one of the many ways students in Ms. Smith’s class created final projects for their Anne Frank unit. “When students read the writing of a young girl who would have been their peer, it becomes more than just an assignment,” Ms. Smith said. Vikings are free to choose projects that reflect their understanding of this material, and previous student creations have included video models, board and card games, art, illustrations, and more. Thanks to Brianna, her parents, and her brothers Craig and Colt, all of whom helped with the building and its furnishings, everyone in her class and now the larger community have a chance to experience the setting of Anne Frank’s last two years in a meaningful way.Students will remember. We will too. [SEE PHOTOS ON OUR FACEBOOK PAGE HERE.] Unless you write yourself, you can’t know how wonderful it is; I always used to bemoan the fact that I couldn’t draw, but now I’m overjoyed that at least I can write. And if I don’t have the talent to write books or newspaper articles, I can always write for myself. But I want to achieve more than that. – Anne Frank