Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial

{{Short description|Park in Boise, Idaho, USA}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}

{{Infobox park

| name = Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial

| image = AnneFrankHumanRightsMemoriaCentopahBackDetail.jpg

| image_size =

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| image_caption = Anne Frank is depicted looking out of her family's hiding place, famous diary in hand, having drawn an invisible curtain. The flowers were left in homage after the vandalism of May 2017.

| map = Idaho

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| type = Cenotaph complex and educational park

| location = Near the Boise Public Library

| nearest_city = Boise, Idaho

| coordinates = {{coord|43.60985|-116.20869|format=dms|type:landmark_region:US-ID|display=title, inline}}

| area = {{convert|.81|acre|ha}}

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File:AnneFrankHumanRightsMemorialUniversalDeclarationOfHumanRights.jpg

The Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial is a {{convert|.81|acre|ha}} cenotaph complex and educational park in Boise, Idaho near the Boise Public Library and the Greenbelt, the centerpiece of which is a statue of Anne Frank; it is jointly maintained by the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights and the Boise Department of Parks and Recreation, and is the only human rights memorial in the U.S.{{Cite web |url=http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/article153899354.html |title=Bieter urges crowd to 'stand up to power' at anti-hate Anne Frank Memorial ceremony |last=Webb |first=Anna |date=2017-06-01 |website=The Idaho Statesman}} Designed by Idaho Falls architect Kurt Karst, a sapling of the Anne Frank Tree and quotations from some sixty notables and unknowns (including poets, activists, politicians and diplomats, those who survived the Holocaust, and those who did not) are prominent installations.{{Cite web |url=http://parks.cityofboise.org/parks-locations/parks/idaho-anne-frank-human-rights-memorial/ |title=Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial |authorlink=Boise Parks & Recreation |access-date=2017-05-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303205906/http://parks.cityofboise.org/parks-locations/parks/idaho-anne-frank-human-rights-memorial/ |archive-date=2016-03-03 |url-status=dead }} It also features one of the few installations where the full text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is on permanent public display. The park has been recognized and accepted by the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience.{{Cite web |url=http://wassmuthcenter.org/the-memorial/ |title=International Coalition of Sites of Conscience |website=Wassmuth Center for Human Rights |access-date=2017-05-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170514025439/http://wassmuthcenter.org/the-memorial/ |archive-date=2017-05-14 |url-status=dead }} It was thoroughly renovated in September 2018, with an outdoor classroom and a new sculpture, "The Spiral of Injustice."{{Cite web |url=https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/community/boise/article218740890.html |title=With racist graffiti in the past, Boise celebrates new day for Anne Frank memorial |last=Berg |first=Sven |date=2018-09-20 |website=The Idaho Statesman |access-date=2018-09-21}}

Museum researcher Brigitte Sion has written that in seeking to use Anne Frank as a symbol for various universal and parochial issues, the memorial offers a sanitized version of Anne Frank that denies the reality of her history. Sion writes "Nothing in the Boise memorial's mission statement, its official literature, or at the site itself directly identifies Anne Frank as a Jewish victim of the Holocaust or explains the reason for her hiding, let alone for her arrest, deportation, and death in a Nazi concentration camp".{{cite book |author=Brigitte Sion |pages=183–185 |title=Anne Frank Unbound : Media, Imagination, Memory |editor1=Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett |editor2=Jeffrey Shandler |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=2012 |chapter=Chapter 6: Anne Frank as Icon, from Human Rights to Holocaust Denial |isbn=978-0-253-00661-5}}

The site not only serves as a convenient staging area for rallies, marches, and protests (and more generally as a contemplative spot), it is where the Boise Police Department takes their newly commissioned officers before field training.{{Cite web |url=http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/community/boise/article149968282.html |title=Anne Frank Memorial hit with another act of vandalism: 'It's a cowardly act, it's a criminal act' |last=Kyle |first=Zach |date=2017-05-11 |editor2-link=Idaho Statesman}}{{Cite web |url=https://pridefoundation.org/2018/12/building-bridges-in-boise/ |title=Building Bridges in Boise |last=Martin |first=Steve |date=2018-12-21 |website=Pride Foundation |access-date=2018-12-23}}