The nation’s only memorial to Anne Frank, who penned a diary while hiding out for 761 days from Nazis, was vandalized with swastikas and signs that read “we are everywhere” outside Boise, Idaho’s Wassmuth Center for Human Rights this week. One of the signs was placed directly on the Anne Frank statue’s diary.
KTVB reports: “The Boise Police Department released a statement on Wednesday morning that the incident actually happened sometime between Monday evening and early Tuesday morning. … The Boise site is the only Anne Frank memorial in the United States, it serves as an educational park designed to engage visitors to think, to talk with one another, and to respond to human rights issues.”
The Wassmuth Center later posted thanks after an outpouring of support: “Thank you to our community. We are so grateful for the calls of support today. While it has been suggested to hold a vigil in the Memorial, we are asking that we stand together to confront hate – BUT NOT physically stand together in the Memorial. Let us each stand up in our homes, neighborhoods, schools and places of work when we hear words that demean or marginalize members of our community. Let us each stand up and be a force of goodness. Let us stand together as a community of compassion and kindness.”
