Three Vermont high schools will host an international traveling exhibit that highlights one of the most famous stories of the Holocaust: that of Anne Frank, the German-born Jewish girl whose diary chronicled her family’s two years of hiding in an Amsterdam attic during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.
“Anne Frank: A History for Today,” created by the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and on loan from the University of South Carolina, is now on display at Bellows Free Academy Fairfax High School until February 20. It will then move to Mill River Union High School in Clarendon, from March 2 to 27, and on to Brattleboro Union High School from April 9 to 30. Though the exhibit is primarily meant for students, each school will host a community night for members of the public to see it.
“Unfortunately, this exhibit is timely every year,” said Debora Steinerman, president and cofounder of the Vermont Holocaust Memorial, a nonprofit that sponsored the exhibit. Steinerman, whose late parents were Holocaust survivors from Czechoslovakia, knows of at least 23 family members who were killed by the Nazis in the 1930s and ’40s.
As knowledge of the Holocaust and Nazi death camps has plummeted in recent years, acts of antisemitism and anti-immigrant sentiment have increased dramatically in the U.S. and worldwide, she noted.
“A huge number of students can’t name a single concentration camp. They don’t know that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust,” Steinerman added. “This is a real problem.”
Though 30 states now mandate Holocaust and genocide education in their K-12 schools, according to the Anti-Defamation League, Vermont is not one of them. While some local high schools teach it, Steinerman said, there is no standardized curriculum. H.310, a bill introduced in the legislature last year to require it, notes that in 2023 Vermont saw the second-highest increase in antisemitic hate crimes, per capita, of any state in the country.
“Anne Frank: A History for Today” is composed of 32 display panels that recount the story of the Holocaust through the eyes of the Frank family during their years in hiding, through their capture by the Nazis and up to Frank’s untimely death, at age 15, from typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in early 1945.
Among the more novel aspects of the exhibit, which is aimed at 11- to 18-year-olds, is that students from each school were trained beforehand to be the docents who present the material to their peers. At BFA Fairfax, those students are enrolled in “Holocaust Studies,” a 12-week elective course for juniors and seniors.
“Anne’s diary is a crucial firsthand account,” said Sara Villeneuve, the English language arts teacher at BFA Fairfax who leads the class. She said the most poignant lessons from Frank’s story are her perseverance and the bravery of those who risked their lives to protect her family. “We can all learn from their courage and humanity.”
“It’s an opportunity for students to see themselves in Anne Frank because she was their age,” added Steinerman, who is one of six second-generation Holocaust survivors living in Vermont who travel the state sharing their families’ stories. “Six million is an overwhelming number, and it often numbs the students’ minds. So stories of individuals, like our families and Anne Frank’s, help make it a little more personal to them.” ➆
“Anne Frank: A History for Today” is open to the community on Friday, March 13, 6-8 p.m., at Mill River Union High School in Clarendon.
This article appears in February 11 • 2026.
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