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Former President Clinton to speak at opening of Anne Frank monument

Anne Frank Tree
Michael Hibblen
/
KUAR News
The location of a memorial at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock for Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl whose family hid from the Nazis during World War II. A sapling will be planted here that comes from a tree Frank could see from a secret annex where her family lived before being captured.

Former President Bill Clinton will be in Arkansas to speak Friday at a ceremony opening a permanent installation at his presidential library which invokes the spirit of a young Jewish girl who hid with her family from the Nazis during World War II.

A young sapling called the Anne Frank Tree will be unveiled. It comes from an original white horse chestnut tree that stood outside the building in Amsterdam where Frank and her family lived in a small, secret annex. Frank wrote about the tree in her now famous diary.

The Clinton Presidential Center is one of 11 entities in the U.S. to be awarded a sapling from that tree. The sapling will be shown at the event, but then kept at a local nursery until it has matured enough to be planted at the exhibit site. 

Jordan Johnson, a spokesman for the Clinton Foundation, says they applied along with the temple B’nai Israel to get the tree several years ago through the Anne Frank Center USA.

"We’re very excited about that and we think we’re probably going to have several hundred school children there at the event on Friday to see this formal opening with the president. So I know it’ll be moving and we’re just grateful that the time has finally come that we can open this," Johnson said.

The tree will be surrounded by five framed etched glass panels. Two panels features quotes from Frank and former President Clinton. The others recount human rights events in Arkansas like the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Japanese-American internment camps of World War II and the Central High Desegregation crisis of 1957.

Friday's event begins at 11 a.m. and is by invitation only.

Anne Frank Tree
Michael Hibblen
/
KUAR News
Part of the display shares details about the life of Anne Frank.

UPDATE (July 24,2022): The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports the sapling displayed at the event died in the spring of 2022. After the 2015 ceremony, the tree was brought back to the Good Earth Garden Center in Little Rock to be nurtured and acclimated to Arkansas weather. Gregg Curtis, owner of the nursery, said the small tree only showed a little bit of growth every spring and fall, but would wither during the summer heat. This spring it became apparent, he said, that the tree would not survive.

Michael Hibblen was a journalist for KUAR News from May 2009 — December 2022. During his final 10 years with the station, he served as News Director. In January 2023, he was hired by Arkansas PBS to become its Senior Producer/ Director of Public Affairs.