Anne Frank returns to campus

Buffalo State College will present the third annual Anne Frank Project this week, a three-day conference aimed at preventing violence and hate by reflecting on genocide and hate crimes around the world.

Various events including discussions, musicians, artists, dancers, actors and a play streaming live from Rwanda are planned in the hope that hateful violence around the world will cease through education and empathy.  

The Anne Frank Project began three years ago when Buffalo State's theater department put on a production of the Diary of Anne Frank — with a twist. Alongside Anne was a character named Tutsi, hiding from Hutu extremists in the midst of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Both characters were speaking Anne's words.

This portrayal of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide side-by-side showed the great similarities between the two.

The AFP will be held on campus Sept. 14 to 16. Speakers, artists, musicians, sociologists, professors, dancers and writers will examine the causes of genocide from a variety of perspectives.

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda claimed the lives of about 800,000 people in the span of 100 days. The genocide was sparked by the murder of then Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana. After the President's death, an ethnic group called the Hutu began their extermination of the Tutsis, another ethnic group within Rwanda. The threat of genocide is still an issue the country is dealing with.

The opening ceremonies will feature a live streaming video chat including a popular Rwandan theater group, many of whom are genocide survivors. Professor of theater and AFP director Andrew Kahn visited the group last year.

Several of the AFP's new friends will be introduced during the live streaming.

The founder, artistic director and choreographer of the theater group, called the Mashirika Creative and Performing Arts Group, will deliver the ceremony's keynote address. Following her speech, the ensemble will perform their play "Echos of Peace."

"This kind of global education in real time is the cutting edge of higher education," Kahn said.

There will be presentations every day of the conference.

The event will feature the premier of the play "I'm Not Leaving," which is based on a manuscript written by Carl Wilkens, the only American to remain in Rwanda during the genocide of 1994. Wilkens traveled to Rwanda with Kahn last year to meet with the performers featured in the opening ceremony's live streaming.

A massive amount of planning goes into making the Anne Frank Project what it is.

"Let us just say that the planning for the 2012 Anne Frank Project has already started," said Delores Battle, professor emeritus of the speech language pathology department and part of the AFP planning committee.

Battle will be giving a presentation on people with disabilities, genocide, the Holocaust and natural disasters Thursday.

Ann Emo, assistant professor of the theater department and Anne Frank Project coordinator, said students are always eager to get involved.

"From the start of the school year," she said, "as soon as they hear about it, students are inquiring about getting involved."

Kahn said he is also confident students want to be a part of making the world a better place.

"Students are hungry for more genuine information so that they may be armed to fight the good fights in the future," he said. "There is so much food for thought and soul we will be serving, all I ask is that every student "eats" as much as possible so that they may be better prepared to follow their hearts in the future; not their wallets, not their T.V's, not their ‘supposed-tos,' but their hearts."

Ariel Peters can be reached by email at peters.record@live.com.