New Anne Frank Center Opens In Lower Manhattan
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - The words of the diary of Anne Frank, one of the many young victims of the Holocaust, have echoed on through time and around the globe to Manhattan.
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"I hope I'll be able to confide everything to you," she wrote.
Formerly located at 38 Crosby Street, the Anne Frank Center USA is now located at 44 Park Place, across the street from Park 51, the controversial Islamic community center.
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LINK: Anne Frank Center USA
The new Frank Center had its grand opening on Thursday.
Asked why her words still resonate more than half a century later, Yvonne Simons, the center's executive director, said, "Because you're talking about a young child and the innocence of that, and people understand that, and particularly young people understand that."
Imam Talib 'Abdur-Rashid, who heads the Islamic Leadership Council of New York, was on hand for the occasion.
"This entire area now should help to remind us of the ongoing importance of tolerance," he said, adding that his hope is that the center will educate and enlighten.
"It's an odd idea for someone like me to keep a diary," Frank also wrote.
"There are so many memories of everything. [We] are able to show everything, the room where she slept," said Holocaust survivor Jack Polak.
The education space is named for Jack and his wife Ina.
99-year-old Jack is still telling his story to schoolchildren worldwide.
"People can't believe how horrible it was. It has to be told," he said.
Anne Frank called Amsterdam home until she was deported by the Nazis, eventually meeting her death at age 15 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in 1945.
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