exhibits

Anne Frank exhibit on now

Created in 1995, the traveling exhibit Anne Frank: A History for Today is on display roughly 300 times a year. Mainly for school groups, people can visit the exhibit at Seaforth Armoury Nov. 11. (photo from Anne Frank House)

The traveling exhibit Anne Frank: A History for Today, hosted by the Consulate General of the Netherlands, is at Seaforth Armoury until Nov. 21. An opportunity for school groups to learn about Anne’s story and the legacy of her diary, the exhibit tours have already sold out, but the public is welcome to visit on Remembrance Day, Nov. 11.

While this is not the first time the exhibit has been in Vancouver, its presence at the armoury and museum is poignant. Started in 1920 by Scottish Canadians, infantry from the Seaforth Highlanders were on the ground in Amsterdam on May 8, 1945. They entered the city as part of the Allies’ liberating force.

Following months of battles and Germany’s surrender, the Seaforth Highlanders offered humanitarian aid to the city’s population. The close ties between the regiment and the people of the Netherlands are commemorated every year.

The school tours at Seaforth Armoury are led by volunteers trained by Phyllis Lewis, a staff member of Anne Frank House, said the house’s director of Canadian activities, John Kastner.

Arriving on Nov. 5, the exhibit required about six people half a day to set up, then there was peer training. The response to the call for volunteers was excellent, said Kastner, as has been the level of interest from local schools.

“I think the premise is from Anne Frank House in Amsterdam – there’s real value for people to become ambassadors of the message. People that are close to the same age as Anne are particularly effective when it comes to relaying the message of the diary,” he said.

Not all the exhibit’s stops are in metropolitan areas. Kastner described its journey to Anne Frank Public School in Vaughan, part of the Greater Toronto Area, then it went to Marathon, a mining community on the shore of Lake Superior, then to All Saints High School in Toronto, before being displayed at Ottawa’s Beechwood Cemetery (Canada’s national military cemetery) and the Dutch consulate in Vancouver, which sponsored it.

And the exhibition will keep moving, said Kastner. “It’s been very busy in 2025 – demand has been very steady and it has hardly been in storage at all.”

Created in 1995, the Canadian exhibitions are just some of the many around the world, in languages including Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Bosnian, Korean, Macedonian and two forms of Portuguese. In total, the exhibit is on display roughly 300 times a year.

Paired with a 30-minute film, Who was Anne Frank?, the tour takes about 90 minutes. It comprises 11 panels of information that are the same worldwide and the 12th panel is curated specifically for the region. The version that arrived in Vancouver this week references the liberation of Amsterdam and all the panels are in both English and French, which is the case for all the Canadian showings, though the exhibit for northern Ontario is also in Inuktitut.

The docents bear a responsibility as ambassadors for Anne’s legacy and message, said Kastner. “You want people who are in classrooms, at dinner tables, in peer groups at schools, who are aware of the story, that become advocates of fairness, opponents of racism, opponents of prejudice, and we really see it in real life – that those docents become docents of the message of Anne Frank House.

“Every generation that comes through, you create a new generation that becomes familiar with the story and the messaging of Anne Frank – not only what she went through, but her optimism in a world surrounded by hate, prejudice and violence…. As people go through the exhibit, they become aware of what an important story it is,” said Kastner. “They come to realize that it is, by definition, a history for today – that it has relevance in today’s society.”

photo - Anne Frank, in 1941. The traveling exhibit Anne Frank: A History for Today is at Seaforth Armoury until Nov. 21 — Anne Frank, in 1941. The traveling exhibit Anne Frank: A History for Today is at Seaforth Armoury until Nov. 21. *(photo from Anne Frank House)*

Kastner spoke about his personal connection to Anne’s remarkable outlook and values, referencing her often-quoted diary entry of July 15, 1944: “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

“I wish we could all be as optimistic as Anne was,” he said. “It was remarkable.

“There have been many periods since the Second World War when we’ve had many reasons to be pessimistic, and that’s why it’s a history for today. It’s a recurring message that continues. After 75 years, it still has relevance.”

Kastner praised the design of the exhibit, calling it “fantastic.”

“There’s a timeline ribbon that goes down the centre … the date and the year. Above the ribbon is what is happening in the world politically at the time. Below the ribbon is how it’s impacting people – Anne, her family and everybody else,” he explained. “The idea is that [some people think] what you see on the news doesn’t really matter…. This says, it should matter, it does make a difference. And that creates an awareness of current events, of being involved … of speaking out. Even in minor cases of prejudice, it’s problematic and [can lead] to a greater problem.”

When talking about this idea in Marathon, Kastner gave the example of name-calling. “Calling someone a name, a slur, we can see it as problematic but not the end of the world,” he said. Or, “graffiti on a kid’s locker, that’s not very nice, but it’s not the end of the world – but it leads to a huge problem when [such actions] become the norm.”

Kastner spoke highly of the 3D model of the house, which is “one of the great learning tools that goes with the exhibit.” There is power in asking teenagers, “Who can tell us where Anne slept?”

“When I went to Anne Frank House to work there, where my workspace was, I’d be looking at the courtyard and at the Annex, looking at the tree, and it’s absolutely surreal,” he said. “Being in the presence of that kind of history. There’s no replacement for that.”

It’s the same tree Anne would have seen.

“I’d be in her father’s office at the warehouse and there are all sorts of people traipsing through the house,” he said, and he’d think about “how you [would have] had to be deathly quiet, completely stationary, because people were using that office.”

Certain questions come up time and again. Students want to know how the Holocaust started, for example.

“The Holocaust didn’t start with people getting loaded on trains,” Kastner explains to the kids. “The Holocaust started with all sorts of things that Anne talks about – her bike being taken away, not being allowed to swim in the public pool, not being allowed to take public transit, then extended to larger things. Her dad not being allowed to have a job or own property.… It starts by slow increments.”

At Anne Frank Public School in Vaughan, the kids asked Kastner how Anne’s diary got published. He described the return of Anne’s father, Otto Frank, to the Annex, which had not changed since the day their hiding place was discovered. He told the students that Miep Gies, who had helped hide Anne and her family, “had taken the diary after the Nazis had left and kept it, gave it to Otto and he read through it and then said, I should publish this.”

Kastner said the kids marvel at the serendipity, the turn of events that led to “one of the most important books written by somebody under the age of 16.” He added, “The kids say that it’s amazing that [Otto] survived, that he got the book, that somebody wanted to publish it and then the idea that it’s become standard reading for millions of kids 70 years later.”

During the exhibition’s stop at Beechwood Cemetery, Kastner recalled two students asking him, “What is it about Jewish people? Why do they pick on Jewish people?” And, “Why didn’t somebody do something?

Kastner explained the scapegoat theory to these students. “It’s in Shakespearian plays, it’s throughout history: the idea of a common enemy often solidifies a group,” he said.

Each exhibition site brings different opportunities for learning, said Kastner. Getting it to remote locations can be tough but it’s worthwhile. Shipping the panels to Marathon, for example, was challenging, but Kastner applauded the motivation of the school there as “very noble and progressive.”

“Every place it goes, it has a different impact and it’s going there for a different reason,” said Kastner of the exhibition.

“The message,” he said, “is in Anne’s experience, Anne’s death – that has relevance in today’s society.”

Shula Klinger is an author and journalist living in North Vancouver.

Both personal & cosmic

Eric Goldstein and Jenny Judge are different in their backgrounds and creative philosophies, in their media and techniques, but they have two characteristics in common: their images are abstract, and strings drive their artistic perceptions. (photo by Jenny Judge)

A string is a simple, utilitarian object. Usually, it connects things, but rarely is it associated with beauty. However, String Theory, the current two-artist exhibition at the Zack Gallery, definitely brings beauty to gallery patrons.

The artists participating in the show – Jenny Judge and Eric Goldstein – are different in their backgrounds and creative philosophies, in their media and techniques, but they have two characteristics in common: their images are abstract, and strings drive their artistic perceptions.

Judge has been an installation artist for decades.

“I received a BFA in sculpture and printmaking in 1983 and completed an MFA in sculpture in 1991,” she told the Independent. “I often integrate a variety of craft-based material and processes in my installations, and I have exhibited them in Canada and abroad, but I have never exhibited my drawings before this show. I’ve been drawing for a long time, but my drawings were never the focus of my art. They were for clearing my head, as was my writing, which is also essential to my practice. Both helped me understand my own concepts better. I guess it is time for my drawings to be in the foreground of a show.”

photo - Jenny Judge — Jenny Judge (photo by Mads Colvin)

Like her installations, Judge’s drawings have depth, displaying multiple layers of texture and meaning.

“The heart of these drawings is transition, the two different sides coming together, connected by lines or strings,” she explained. “Light versus dark. Old age versus youth. Northern hemisphere versus southern. Sky versus water. My family lives in Canada and New Zealand, and I’m often traveling from there to here and back. My drawings help me to make sense of these transitions.”

All her pieces in the show are a wash of muted paint in the background overlaid by a network of strings and nodes in faintly contrasting colours. The web of strings and their junctions is complex and delicate, the lines gossamer-thin, reflecting the artist’s contemplation of belonging to the emotional and physical landscape of both Canada and New Zealand.

“My drawing are like landscapes,” she said. “There is even a horizon line in most of them, the line where two different worlds meet, the areas of constant shifting and negotiations. But there is much more to the story I want to tell. That’s why I paint in the abstract style. A simple landscape is just that – a landscape, a forest or a mountain. But an abstract picture always leaves room for interpretation. Everyone can come up with their own story.”

Like her images, Judge’s titles are also open to interpretation: “Crossing,” “Striations,” “Pass Through,” for example.

“They underscore my feelings of not always knowing where I am in time and space, of always seeking connections,” she said.

Inspired by the concepts of meeting points, of confluence and repetition, Judge also sees parallels between her compositions and knitting.

“I learned to knit from my mother when I was 10. I remember sitting with her as we talked, knitted and counted stitches. I still enjoy knitting. When you knit, you have one string of yarn and you repeat the same pattern over and over again. And, suddenly, you have something else: a scarf or a sweater. That’s what I do when I draw. I repeat endless variations of the same pattern until something meaningful emerges,” she said.

Another link between her drawings and her knitting is the tool she employs. She draws with a bamboo skewer (very like a knitting needle), dipped in acrylic ink. “It is a very domestic item,” she said. “But it has a sharp point, sharper than any brush. It allows me to draw very thin lines. I build those webs of lines over one another, rows and layers, until I’m satisfied with the result. Sometimes, it takes several layers until the whole starts making sense. Of course, it takes a long time to draw all the lines I visualize for even one painting.”

Perhaps the length of time it takes her to create her pieces contributes to the fact that she doesn’t take commissions. “I tried,” she said. “But I didn’t like the clients’ constant demands. I don’t create art for the money.”

Goldstein, however, does take commissions and he relishes seeing his pieces in people’s homes.

“I create mixed media collages,” he said. “I use coloured fibres, gold foil, glass, paint, plaster.”

While Judge’s web-like pictures imply multiple dimensions, Goldstein’s fibre string collages tend to one-directional geometries, either horizontal or vertical, their colour patterns cheerful and dazzlingly bright. The gold foil and the glass fragments provide even more pizzazz to his deceptively simple compositions. “I build my canvasses like an architect builds a building,” he said.

Goldstein came to the visual art from the movie industry. Over the past three decades, he has been the director of photography for more than 75 film projects, from Hollywood features to documentaries. Creating gorgeous, highly decorative fibre collages for the last 15 years has provided him with a different outlet for his artistic vision.

“I’m inspired by nature, by the West Coast landscape,” he said. “Not as it appears on the surface. Instead, I want to capture how it feels to experience it – often chaotic, often incomprehensible. I try to convey feelings. As a mixed-media artist, I delve into the intricate, visual storytelling of people and the world around us.”

The pieces Goldstein presents in this show have rather mundane titles, in contrast to the elaborate poetry of the images themselves. “I call my paintings ‘Poetic narratives with kinetic energy,’” he said.

One of the paintings, “View of the Bay,” is a symphony of blue, where glass tiles twinkle among the strings like windows on the far shore. “No Curtains Needed,” on the other hand, is a subtler image, hinting at an open window and a playful light. The artist offers a short description for every canvas, and this one reads: “The absence of curtains allows for unfiltered light to dance freely upon the walls. It creates a sense of freedom and awe. Reminding us to let go of our barriers, both physical and cerebral, so we can.”

One of his most notable pieces in the exhibit – the white and blue “What Remains” – feels like a scream of the artist’s soul.

“The colours are the deconstructed Israeli flag,” he said. And his description of the image reads like a part of a poem: “This is my way of bearing witness to the horror unfolding in Israel and Gaza. It expresses my profound sense of conflict and loss of a meaningful identity. This piece isn’t about right or wrong or even resolution; it’s about holding space for complexity, for grief and empathy, and hope that something sacred remains.”

Goldstein exhibits a lot, and his works are in demand. “Next month, I’ll have a show at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre,” he said. “I’ll have 12 paintings there.”

Judge and Goldstein didn’t know each other before Sarah Dobbs, the gallery curator, decided that their works were complementary. “Together,” she said, “Judge and Goldstein show that both our lives and the universe are shaped by invisible threads – of memory, matter and meaning. String Theory is … about the poetic links between the personal and the cosmic, reminding us that everything is connected.” Both artists agree.

String Theory is at the Zack Gallery until Sept. 22. To learn more, check the artists’ websites: ericgoldsteinart.com and jennyjudge.com.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Light and whimsical houses

Roxsane Tanner’s watercolours are on exhibit at the Steveston Museum and Post Office (painted here by Tanner) this month.

“Steveston is such a beautiful place,” artist Roxsane Tanner told the Independent. Her first solo show of watercolours features quaint houses of the village, where she has lived and worked for many years. The exhibit opened at the Steveston Museum and Post Office on June 1 and will be on display for the month.

Roxsane Tanner (photo courtesy)

Born in Holland soon after the Second World War, Tanner came to Canada with her family in 1951.

“My father was in the resistance, and my mother was in hiding during the war. They were both Jewish and wouldn’t have survived otherwise,” she said.

Her older sister was born during the German occupation, and her mother had to hide her baby with a local family. “My sister was 3 years old when my mom came for her after the war, to take her back. That was the first time she saw her mother.”

After the family came to Canada, her parents moved a lot. “They were very entrepreneurial,” said Tanner. “We lived in many small towns in Ontario and Quebec. Sometimes, my parents had several businesses open at the same time in the same town: a pet shop, a fabric shop, some others. They always worked hard. When I was 19, my parents and I moved to Vancouver. In the beginning, we lived in a trailer, the same one we drove here from across Canada.”

Tanner inherited her parents’ work ethic and their courage to try new things. “After high school, I wanted to study nursing, but soon after I started classes, I hurt my knees and had to come home – I couldn’t walk.”

After she healed, she became a dental assistant and worked as one for several years. “Until I met my first husband,” she recalled with a smile. “He was a wallpaper hanger. I fell in love with the man, married him, and joined his business. We worked together for several decades.”

Even after her first husband’s untimely death from cancer, she continued their business on her own. Many houses in Richmond and Vancouver feature wallpaper installed by Roxsane Tanner. By now, she has been a wallpaper hanger for more than 50 years. “But I’m slowing down,” she said. “I’m not accepting many new clients, not anymore.”

Now, she is becoming more and more absorbed in various artistic endeavours. Art was always on the periphery of her life. “I always dabbled,” she said. “Then, about 15 years ago, my second husband, Fred, and I visited Italy. He was a high school counselor before he retired; we were chaperoning a group of kids on that trip. I saw some beautiful jewelry local artisans sold on the street. I liked it, but it was too expensive. I thought maybe I could make something like that, and Fred encouraged me. When we returned home, I enrolled in a course on silversmithing and started making my own jewelry. Fred built a silversmithing studio for me in our backyard.”

She took more classes in different techniques, many of them on YouTube. “I can spend hours watching educational videos on YouTube,” she said. “There is always something new. Thousands of talented artists offer classes there. The good thing about YouTube: once you subscribe, you can watch the same lesson several times, until you really get it.”

She sells her jewelry – earrings, bracelets and necklaces – in a local Steveston shop. Occasionally, she offers her own classes in jewelry-making, to children and adults. What started as a hobby from a casual observation in Florence ended up becoming a small business, as many of Tanner’s hobbies tend to do: sewing, for example.

“My mother taught me to sew, knit and crochet,” she said. And, wanting to pass the skills on to others, she started, out of her home, to teach children how to sew. “We buy special kits and make hats and scarves for the homeless,” she said.

But that was not enough for her. Her creativity needed another outlet. About the same time as she embarked on jewelry-making, she also started painting in watercolours. “I took classes, of course, some on YouTube, others at the local Phoenix Art Workshop here in Steveston. At first, I painted landscapes, but I didn’t like it. A few years later, I went to Malta on a trip with the Phoenix Studio – they have amazing houses there, and I was inspired. The next year, we traveled to Mexico. I admired their historical buildings, but we also have amazing houses here, in Steveston. There are many heritage places here. I wanted to paint them.”

When she returned from Mexico, she noticed a blue house in Steveston she liked and took a photo of it. “I painted it from my photo. It was my first, and my friends kept bugging me: you need to show your painting to the owner. So, I went and knocked on his door. I never met him before that day, and he was somewhat gruff at first. He asked me if I would sell it to him, and I agreed. That’s how it started.”

image - Steveston’s Fisherman’s wharf, painted by Roxsane Tanner — Steveston’s Fisherman’s wharf, painted by Roxsane Tanner.

Tanner has built another small business on that foundation. “I paint houses that are for sale. Realtors around Steveston commission my paintings as gifts for the new homeowners. People also come to me and ask me to paint their houses, or their children’s houses, as gifts. Sometimes, I paint from my own photographs. Other times, the clients bring their photos and order a painting from that image.”

Besides personal homes, she paints heritage places around Steveston. The old community centre, a coffee shop, a church turned into a thrift store, the pier, with its picturesque boats, and the tiny post office – the same one where some of her work is now on display.

The exhibition includes Tanner’s original watercolour paintings plus postcards and mugs with her artwork. Some of the paintings sport charming, quirky houses found only in the artist’s imagination. “I go online and search for heritage homes around the world. If I like one, I use it as my inspiration, but I don’t copy the photos. I want my painted houses light and whimsical, like a fairy tale. Maybe a bit crooked, but reflecting the essence of the house, its soul and personality. Even the real houses I paint are not exact copies of the photos. I don’t use a ruler to make the straight lines. I use my watercolours to remind people of the fun and joy their homes bring them.”

You can see more of Tanner’s art at instagram.com/studioplace99.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

A land of contradictions

Sorour Abdollahi’s solo exhibit Intersecting Landscapes is now at Zack Gallery. (photo by Olga Livshin)

Over the years, Iranian-Canadian artist Sorour Abdollahi has participated in several group shows at Zack Gallery, but the current exhibition, Intersecting Landscapes, which opened on Sept. 7, is her first solo show here.

“Sorour is definitely not the first non-Jewish artist with a solo show at the Zack,” said gallery director Hope Forstenzer. For years, the mission of the Zack Gallery, which is in the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, has been to showcase Jewish artists and art dedicated to Jewish themes, she said. Non-Jewish artists were not excluded, but they usually appeared in group shows.

“The big difference in the past few years,” said Forstenzer, “has been an expansion of the definition of a Jewish theme to include a wider variety of human universal experiences that reflect on Jewish cultural history and traditions.… Sorour’s work, while not as overtly Jewish as some, addresses the concept of diaspora and its impact on culture and memory. When we made the decision to show her work, it was based on the concept of a cultural nostalgia for home as an inherently Jewish theme. And the response to it, so far, has borne that out – it has had a very strong emotional impact on the community here at the JCC and has already engendered discussion of the Jewish diaspora.”

Abdollahi has been a professional artist all her life. “I’ve always painted, since I was a child,” she told the Independent.

She received her art education in Iran, and her first solo art show happened there in 1987. A successful artist, working in mixed media and acrylics, she regularly exhibited in Iran, participating in multiple group and solo shows in various cities, including Tehran and Isfahan. The only big gap in her exhibiting schedule occurred when she immigrated to Canada. “We came here in 2000,” she said. “We did it for the children.”

Like all immigrants, she struggled with the new language and new culture. “It was several years later, when my children grew older, that I enrolled in Emily Carr [University of Art + Design] part time,” she recalled. “I wanted to become familiar with the local art scene, with the educators and the artists. I wanted to become a part of the local artistic community. And it worked beautifully. My friendships with wonderful Vancouver artists Devora and Sidi Schaffer stem from those days.”

Five years after her immigration, Abdollahi felt immersed enough in the British Columbia art vista to open her own studio and gallery in Yaletown.

“People would pass my gallery on the street, and some would come in,” she said. “They asked questions. I felt that my art connected.”

That connection gave her the courage to join the Eastside Culture Crawl – the biggest visual art festival in Vancouver – 10 years ago.

Abdollahi’s current show at the Zack represents the scope of her art perfectly. It consists of old and new paintings from several different series. A blend of abstract and figurative art, her paintings are airy and bright. Most of them have vague architectural connotations and employ a predominantly blue and green palette reminiscent of spring and rebirth. The abstract forms, sometimes utterly modern, often reveal faint outlines of ruins, shimmering in the mist, in the background.

“I grew up in the land of contradictions, where a traditional way of living juxtaposed a modern, Western lifestyle,” she said. “Those contradictions manifested in the landscape surrounding me, the historical against the contemporary, with layers of change and transformation.”

Immigration to a new country profoundly impacts her imagery.

“In my paintings, I examine the relationship between memories and the external landscape,” she said. “My Iranian background and my Canadian experience have had an enormous influence on my works. They inspired a negotiation between the modern and the ancient, the old and the new, the West and the East. Ancient ruins and Persian architecture play a pivotal role, too. They have enabled me to express the conflict and the negotiation process that often exists between two different cultures or societies. While the ruins speak of a mysterious, pure and mystical past, they also illustrate the corrosive effect of time and modernity, the constant reconfiguration of a country’s landscape, architecture and culture. The dripping paint in many of my pictures also illuminates the process of renewal. The old slides down, while the new grows over it. My paintings attempt to form a bridge between the past and the present.”

Two of the paintings particularly stand out. “The Magical Carpet” is a collage, full of the whimsical patterns, warm hues and bright shapes of a traditional eastern bazaar, with the artist’s customary ruins in the background.

Another painting, “Letters from Beyond”, with its strong punch of red paint, uses fragments of writing that are wholly imaginary. “The language and the letters in that writing don’t belong to any nation,” Abdollahi said. “I created it because I believe that we are all the same people. We should have no borders and no different languages separating us. That’s why I wanted to have a show here, at the Jewish Community Centre. I feel like my art is a link that connects us all.”

Abdollahi’s works can be found in private collections in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Intersecting Landscapes runs until Oct. 12. For more information, visit sorourart.wordpress.com.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Witness to “longest hatred”

The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre maintains significant holdings of Nazi and antisemitic propaganda that bears witness to centuries of anti-Jewish hatred. Acquired through the generosity of local historians and collectors – Peter N. Moogk, professor emeritus, history, University of British Columbia; Kit Krieger, Joseph Tan, Harrison and Hilary Brown, and others – the propaganda in the VHEC collection promoted antisemitic stereotypes, including Nazi ideology, in Europe and North America from 1770 to the postwar period. Although the content is offensive, these primary sources serve as an important historical record of the “longest hatred.”

The study of propaganda is critical to Holocaust scholarship. Historic antisemitica reveals a cultural tradition in Europe that the Nazis were able to exploit in pursuit of their “Final Solution.” The stereotypes found in Nazi propaganda were hardly new; Nazi propaganda was built upon the same antisemitic rhetoric and tropes that had been repeated over centuries and across countries and continents. Viewed in this context, propaganda provides insight as to why the Nazis’ message met with little resistance from an audience familiar with the language and imagery of anti-Jewish hatred.

The study of propaganda is also important to our understanding of the use of a state’s authority to control targeted segments of its population. This dynamic is explored in the VHEC’s new exhibition, Age of Influence: Youth & Nazi Propaganda. Drawing upon diverse primary sources, Age of Influence examines the Nazis’ efforts to manipulate the experiences, attitudes and aspirations of German children and teens.

photo - Photograph of a girl wearing the uniform of the League of German Girls, circa 1940. Donated by Peter N. Moogk — Photograph of a girl wearing the uniform of the League of German Girls, circa 1940. Donated by Peter N. Moogk. *(photo from VHEC)*

Many of the materials featured in this exhibition will be new to visitors, such as family photographs, Nazi youth magazines and anti-Roma youth fiction. Other artifacts will be instantly recognizable, like the infamous children’s books on display at the VHEC for the first time: The Poisonous Mushroom (Ernst Hiemer, Der Giftpilz, Nuremberg: Stürmerverlag, 1938) and Trust No Fox (Elvira Bauer, Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinem Jud auf seinem Eid [Trust No Fox on his Green Heath and No Jew on his Oath], Nuremberg: Der Stürmer Verlag, 1936). Age of Influence is designed to encourage active engagement with these artifacts and images. Throughout the exhibition, questions prompt visitors to critically analyze materials on display and identify common techniques used to disseminate both positive and negative propaganda.

The exhibition’s storyline begins in the early 20th century, when youth in Germany started defining themselves as a distinct socio-cultural group, attracting the attention of parties across the political spectrum. Popularized by youth-led groups like the Wandervogel, the German youth movement sought independence from adult authority and embraced communal and back-to-nature ideals. Their activities focused on hiking, survival skills and group pursuits in nature. Against this backdrop, the Nazi party emerged and cast itself as the future-facing “movement of youth.” With its Hitler Youth organization, the Nazi party tapped into the German youth movement and set its sights on this demographic to shape the future of a “racially pure” and physically fit national community.

Age of Influence examines how the Hitler Youth became the regime’s most effective tool to indoctrinate children and teens in Nazi ideology. It offered German youth a powerful group identity and appealed to adolescent yearnings such as the desire to belong, the quest for action and adventure, a sense of purpose and independence from parents. With separate organizations for boys and girls, Hitler Youth glorified gender roles. Boys were prepared for military and leadership responsibilities while girls were groomed to become wives, mothers and caregivers for the nation.

image - June 1934 issue of Der Aufbruch, a Hitler Youth magazine. Donated by Joseph Tan — June 1934 issue of Der Aufbruch, a Hitler Youth magazine. Donated by Joseph Tan. *(image from VHEC)*

An array of Nazi youth magazines from 1934 to 1943 are featured in Age of Influence, as well as family photographs, collectible cigarette cards, video clips and Hitler Youth paraphernalia. Visitors can browse the pages of Nazi youth magazines to discover for themselves the eye-catching fonts, unique graphics and captivating images, which were carefully designed to attract young audiences. At its height, the Nazi youth press published 57 different magazine titles for children.

While participation in Hitler Youth was compulsory for most children, Jewish youths were banned from membership. Their experience is given voice in the exhibition by local survivors. In video testimony clips, Serge Vanry, Jannushka Jakoubovitch and Judith Eisinger describe their feelings of fear, shame and rejection as Jewish children confronted with pervasive antisemitic propaganda and excluded from the activities of their non-Jewish peers.

Perhaps the best-known propaganda tactic used by the Nazis was the creation of common enemies. Antisemitism and racism were key educational goals in the Nazi German school system, where students were taught that the health of the German nation was threatened by “inferior” groups like the Jews, Roma and individuals with disabilities. By demonizing and scapegoating these groups, the Nazis created a climate of hostility and indifference toward their treatment. Age of Influence depicts this process with reference to artifacts such as children’s books and instructional posters used in German schools.

Contextualizing Nazi propaganda within a broad historical framework is essential. For this reason, Age of Influence has been mounted in conjunction with In Focus: The Holocaust through the VHEC Collection. In Focus presents a thematic history of the Holocaust, illustrated by artifacts donated to the VHEC by local survivors and collectors. A curated selection of antisemitica in this exhibition conveys the long-held perceptions and representations of Jews through time.

This history is also important as we navigate escalating antisemitism and racism around the globe and in Canada, where reports of antisemitic incidents have reached record levels. The use of digital media has amplified hate, and the ease with which disinformation can be spread on social media platforms perpetuates Holocaust distortion and denial. In this milieu, it is imperative to equip students with the media literacy skills required to critically evaluate information they encounter. Age of Influence will assist educators to promote key curricular objectives such as digital literacy, critical thinking and social responsibility.

For more information on Age of Influence and In Focus, visit vhec.org.

Lise Kirchner has worked with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre since 1999 in the development and delivery of its educational programs. She was part of the exhibition team that developed Age of Influence: Youth & Nazi Propaganda, along with Tessa Coutu, Franziska Schurr and Illene Yu. This article was originally published in the VHEC’s Spring 2023 issue of Zachor.