A German kindergarten is considering renaming the “Kindertagesstätte ‘Anne Frank'” to accommodate diversity initiatives.
School officials have determined that the school will be renamed “World Explorer.”
According to Linda Schichor, the director of the kindergarten, “We wanted something without political background.”
Mayor of Tangerhütte, Germany, Andreas Brohm, explained to a German outlet that “It is important to the institution to make this conceptual change visible to the outside world.”
“If parents and employees want a name that better reflects the new concept, that has more weight compared to the global political situation,” Brohm added.
The Telegraph reported that Christoph Heubner, the deputy head of the International Auschwitz Committee, called for the name change to be reversed.
“If one is prepared to forget one’s own history so easily, especially in these times of renewed anti-Semitism and Right-wing extremism, one can only feel fear and anxiety about the culture of remembrance in our country,” he said in a letter to area’s local council.
Max Privorozki, Chairman of the State Association of Jewish Communities in Saxony-Anhalt, told German outlet Bild, “I am not sure that now is the right moment to change the name of the daycare center, which has existed for more than 50 years.”
“The reference to the parents with a migrant background, who often cannot do anything with the name of Anne Frank, is the best argument against the name change: This argument means that the integration of these parents into German society is failing,” he added.
The move comes amid rises in antisemitism following the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
