Anne Frank

Anne Frank's Diary

On Saturday I headed to Neue Vahr Nord to see the Anne Frank exhibition that is on there at the moment.  Entry is free and it was really interesting.  My friend invited me because she knows I am going to Amsterdam in August and hoping to visit the Anne Frank House.  It was a great preparation exhibition in that it wasn't amazing but it had lots of information and excitingly a complete copy of the diary.  It was very moving too with lots of quotes from her friends and family as well as from Anne herself.  It's amazing what a forward thinking and bright young woman she was, it certainly makes you wonder how things might have been.

The day falls in to the same category as the one on which I visited Auschwitz during a trip to Poland.  It's something that is incredibly interesting, important and impossible to miss for someone who studied German history but at the same time, can't be described as an enjoyable experience.  It was certainly though provoking and the exhibition here in Bremen would be great for some of the kids at school, though I think the older ones would appreciate it the most.

Focke Museum

Today was the last school trip of the week (and school year for that matter) with three classes visiting the Focke Museum.  I have never been here before and nobody could tell me much about it but it was actually quite interesting.  I still don't know what Focke is - we think it's a company name.  The museum is actually a little random.

The first section of the museum (the bit we had a guided tour of) is an old Bremen thatched farmhouse that was completely dismantled and rebuilt at the site of the museum.  The guide explained a lot about how life was when these houses were orignally built and how the animals and people all lived in there.  There was even a hole in the top of the house so that owls could get in and live there - so that they would in turn get rid of the mice!

We also saw the old baking oven and well in the farm garden as well as the building where all the tools and carts were kept.  It was really interesting- it almost made me want to become a farmer!

The main building of the museum had all different kinds of exhibits based around Bremen and Germany.  We didn't have as much time there but what I did see was good.  I'd like to go back without 90 pupils and spend some time looking around properly!