A statue of Holocaust victim and diarist Anne Frank was dedicated in Buenos Aires Wednesday, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported. The statue, an exact replica of one located in Amsterdam, where Anne and her family hid during World War II, was inaugurated in the Kingdom of Netherlands Square in the Puerto Madero district - a popular tourist destination in Buenos Aires. The Buenos Aires City Government and the Dutch Embassy in Buenos Aires together with the Anne Frank House and Museum of Buenos Aires - host to permanent exhibitions and educational programs since 2009 - dedicated the statue sculpted by artist Jet Schepp. About 300 students from both Jewish schools and Buenos Aires public schools attended the ceremony. Rabbi Awraham Soetendorp, a Dutch Holocaust survivor who is also the former president of the European Union for Progressive Judaism, was the keynote speaker of the ceremony. Soetendorp, who remained hidden throughout the war, remembered the decision of a Dutch Housewife who him as a three-month-old child hidden in a suitcase. “I am here because of human compassion,” he stressed. Other speakers included Holland's ambassador to Argentina, Martin de la Beij, and The Anne Frank House and Museum Director, Hector Shalom. “This statue is to glorify her life and hope. Because of that, we are inaugurating this important new symbol of our city on Human Rights Day,” Claudio Avruj, the undersecretary of Human Rights and Cultural Pluralism of the Buenos Aires City Government, told JTA. Argentina’s Minister of Education, Alberto Sileoni, told the crowd that “Anne left us a diary, but there are others who left nothing, and if that horror is lost it can be repeated.”
