The plans for a nursery to stop being called “Anne Frank” They have caused controversy in Germany. The news was reported in the newspaperVolksstimme‘, which advanced the intention of a children’s school in Tangerhütte, in Saxony-Anhalt, to abandon the name that, according to the aforementioned media, it had had since the 70s in honor of the Jewish teenager who died in the Holocaust and author of the famous diary.

A decision that, in a context of concern about anti-Semitism in Germany in the face of Israel-Hamas conflicthas generated a wave of indignation in the country.

According to the aforementioned media, the idea was that the new name would be “Weltentdecker” (“World Explorer”) and the center’s director, Linda Schichor, said that the process of changing it has been underway since the summer. According to the educator, the story of Anne Frank was difficult for the little ones to understand. “We wanted something without political background”he explained.

He too mayor of the town, Andreas Brohm, justified the name change in statements collected by ‘Volksstimme’, indicating that it was accompanied by a new concept for the nursery, more open and promoting diversity and self-determination of children. Likewise, he defended that if parents and teachers wanted a name change that should have more weight than the global political context.

Some explanations that, however, have not convinced the Jewish community itself and that have been answered by Christoph Heubner, executive vice president of the International Auschwitz Committeewho on Sunday led a open letter to the mayor and those responsible for the school frontally rejecting the name change.

“If you are willing to dismissing one’s own history so carelesslyespecially in these times of new anti-Semitism and right-wing extremism, and if the name of Anne Frank is perceived as inappropriate in the public space, one can only feel fearful and anxious looking at the culture of remembrance in our country,” the letter stated. .

For his part, the president of the German-Israeli Society of Magdeburg, Tobias Krull, said that a name change would be the wrong signal just at times of growing anti-Semitism, according to the Efe agency.

Given the commotion, the first mayor of the German municipality clarified it’s a statement this monday that no decision has been made yet about the name change. “We have received many suggestions and constructive proposals, for which we are very grateful,” Brohm says in the note. For their part, the parliamentary groups in the City Council will oppose the change of name of the nursery, as indicated by Werner Jacob, from the CDU, to ‘Welt‘.

Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt to a Jewish family. In 1933, after the Nazis came to power, the family fled to Holland where, after the German invasion, It was hidden between 1942 and 1944. During those years, the young woman wrote a diary that would become one of the most read books in the world. Anne Frank died in 1945 at the Bergen-Belsen extermination camp.while his father survived the Holocaust and published his diary after the war.