Tree saplings are often seen as a symbol of new beginnings, hope and growth.
For Anne Frank, the chestnut tree that she wrote about in her diary while in hiding during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands represented freedom and the outside world. While the original tree fell due to a storm in 2010, Bob Hawkins and his team from the Vallonia Nursery in Indiana propagated its branches into new saplings that were distributed around the world in her memory, according to the Anne Frank Center.
In November, students and staff at Spokane's Peperzak Middle School celebrated the school's namesake, Carla Olman Peperzak, on her 101st birthday by surprising her with news of the incoming sapling. Now, it rests its roots in a corner of the school's Moran Prairie campus.
On Saturday, June 21, Peperzak Middle School hosted a dedication ceremony as it received one of about 20 Anne Frank tree saplings in the U.S.
The sapling dedication ceremony was held behind the middle school on a particularly windy day. The freshly planted tree now sits tucked inside a small circle of fencing, the soil still damp from recent rainy days. More than 50 people gathered in folding chairs set up outside, including students, faculty, and many family members and friends of the community.
“The kids will spend their time here being immersed in the most wonderful story of human resilience and human empathy,” says Gillian Perry, co-founder and honorary vice-president of the Anne Frank Trust UK. “It will be something that they take with them throughout their lives."
Perry hopes the young people attending Peperzak Middle School will carry these stories into the future and not accept any forms of discrimination, prejudice or bullying.
Principal Andre Wicks introduced the ceremony by thanking everyone who helped organize the sapling dedication for and at Peperzak.“Carla Peperzak’s story lives in our hallways and in our classrooms,” Wicks says. “It is stitched into the fabric of who we are and hope to become.”
Peperzak was born in 1923 in Amsterdam and grew up attending the same synagogue and Hebrew school as Margot Frank, Anne Frank's older sister, according to the Holocaust Center for Humanity. As a member of the Dutch Resistance, Peperzak worked to save other Jewish people, including her own family members, from the Nazi regime.
Peperzak hopes having an Anne Frank sapling at the school will influence students to “be kind to one another, to respect each other and to be good to other people and to help whenever they can… the kids love this school … and I think [the sapling] does make a difference.”
Peperzak’s story is well-known and inspires the school’s community. Katie Stark, parent of an eighth grade student at Peperzak Middle School, says her family is very proud of this school and its connection to Peperzak.
“Our daughter especially has really loved her relationship with Carla Peperzak and how Carla is so involved with the students,” Stark says.
Spokane Public School Board President Nikki Otero-Lockwood spoke about the importance of this honor on Saturday.
“Now our students will have the chance to learn from both Anne Frank and Carla Peperzak side by side, a woman who they’ve never met and a woman who they’ve met and been inspired by that lives in Spokane,” Otero-Lockwood says “This sapling is not just a remembrance, it is a responsibility, let it remind us of what must never be forgotten and what must always be defended.”
Otero-Lockwood also touched on how these values are important to uphold in regards to the current state of our nation, imploring people to stand up for the rights and liberties of immigrants, too
“This tree represents life, this tree represents resilience, this tree represents hope, and it represents growth,” Principal Wicks says.
