Behind the Janskerkhof Bloemenmarkt flower market stands a bronze statue of Anne Frank, commemorating the Holocaust victims, the victims of discrimination and persecution in Utrecht, and more than 1,200 Jews from Utrecht who were murdered. On Liberation Day, May 5th, 1959, the year Anne would have celebrated her 30th birthday, the youth of Utrecht gave this statue to the city as an appreciation gift for the various youth associations the Utrecht has organized. They collected scrap iron and paper to finance it, and the Utrecht sculptor Pieter d’Hont created it, depicting Frank standing, looking forward, and strong. It is the first statue of Anne Frank in the world, unveiled in 1960. Traditionally, flowers are placed at the statue all year round, and every year, during the commemoration of the dead, there is a gathering next to it. Anne Frank (1929-1945) was a German-Jewish teenage girl when World War II embarked. When the Nazis invaded the Netherlands and enforced antisemitic rules that demonized, isolated, and threatened their lives, on July 6th, 1942, the family hid in a secret annex in her father’s office building in Amsterdam. During her time in hiding, Anne wrote in the diary she received for her 13th birthday, expressing her thoughts and feelings about the war and the day after. On August 4th, 1944, the secret German police discovered them, deporting all the annex residents to a concentration camp, where Anne, her sister, and her mother died. After the war ended, Anne’s father returned to Amsterdam, discovering he was the only survivor. He found Anne’s diary and published it, fulfilling Anne’s dream of becoming a writer and sharing her testimony about her childhood during World War II. Over the years, The Diary of Anne Frank was translated into more than 70 languages and sold over 30 million copies worldwide, making Anne one of, if not the most known, Holocaust victims. The Dutch Canadian Club Edmonton unveiled a copy of this statue in Edmonton, Canada, in August 2021. Click here to see more statues of Anne Frank around the world. Read more...