Community college dedicates sapling from tree mentioned by Anne Frank
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Community college dedicates sapling from tree mentioned by Anne Frank

July 18, 2024, 10:27 am Edit
Participants at the dedication included, from left, Fred Polak, the son of Holocaust survivors Jack and Ina Polak, who founded the Anne Frank Center USA; Dr. Lauren Bairnsfather, CEO of the Anne Frank Center USA; and Margit Feldman’s daughter and son, Tina Feldman and Dr. Joseph Feldman. (Photos courtesy of Raritan Valley Community College)
Participants at the dedication included, from left, Fred Polak, the son of Holocaust survivors Jack and Ina Polak, who founded the Anne Frank Center USA; Dr. Lauren Bairnsfather, CEO of the Anne Frank Center USA; and Margit Feldman’s daughter and son, Tina Feldman and Dr. Joseph Feldman. (Photos courtesy of Raritan Valley Community College)

Raritan Valley Community College recently honored the legacy of Anne Frank and a local Holocaust survivor, Margit Feldman, z”l. The program was a dedication of a sapling grown from the horse chestnut tree that towered behind Anne Frank’s secret annex in Amsterdam. During the Holocaust, Anne and her family hid in the annex for more than two years.

The college is one of six new recipients of these saplings, according to the Anne Frank Center USA. The sapling planting is supported through the college’s Institute of Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Representatives of the Anne Frank Center USA, Margit Feldman’s family, the Jewish Federation of West-Central New Jersey, and RVCC community spoke. The Institute of Holocaust and Genocide Studies is a collaboration between RVCC and the Jewish Federation of West-Central New Jersey.

RVCC first applied to participate in the sapling project in 2020, inspired by the memory of Margit Feldman, a survivor of the Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps and a co-founder of the college’s Institute of Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Ms. Feldman was born on the same date as Anne Frank — June 12, 1929, and died in 2020.

A bench dedicated to Ms. Feldman was placed next to the sapling, which was been planted on the RVCC campus in Branchburg near the Christine Todd Whitman Science Center.

“Raritan Valley Community College is incredibly honored to receive the sapling, a gift of the Anne Frank Center USA, and to remember Margit Feldman and recognize her work for the Institute of Holocaust and Genocide Studies,” Dr. Michael J. McDonough, RVCC’s president, said. “The ceremony at RVCC focusing on these two remarkable individuals inspires everyone to envision a better world, free from discrimination, where everyone feels safe, welcome, and respected.”

In a 1968 speech, Anne Frank’s father, Otto Frank, spoke about the impact of the chestnut tree on his younger daughter. “How could I have known how much it meant to Anne to see a patch of blue sky, to observe the seagulls as they flew, and how important the chestnut tree was for her, when I think that she never showed any interest in nature?” he asked. “Still,” he acknowledged, “she longed for it when she felt like a bird in a cage.”

The Sapling Project began in 2009 with the efforts of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam to preserve the original chestnut tree by gathering and germinating chestnuts and donating the saplings to organizations dedicated to Anne Frank’s memory. Despite efforts to strengthen the original tree, the aged, diseased tree toppled in a windstorm in 2010; it was one of the oldest chestnut trees in Amsterdam.

Over the last 10 years, Anne Frank Center USA has awarded saplings to sites across the United States, including the U.S. Capitol, the United Nations Headquarters, and others. Taken together, these trees form a living memorial with branches reaching from coast to coast. For information, go to www.raritanval.edu.

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