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An exhibition looking at the formation and work of the Red Cross
shares space at Constitution Hill with one focusing on Anne Frank.
CONSTITUTION Hill has scheduled a variety of informative
lectures, seminars, and exhibitions at the Women's Jail Atrium this winter.
Constitution Hill is hosting a range of exhibitions
These include exhibits on the Battle of Solverino, which led
to the creation of the Red Cross, and on Anne Frank, whose diary focused
attention on the barbarity of war and prejudice. There will also be a public
seminar on leadership in South
Africa and torture, among other exhibitions
at other Constitution Hill venues.
Battle
of Solverino
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will be showcasing The
Battle of Solverino from 24 June to 3 July.
The battle took place in Italy in 1859, and was witnessed by
Swiss businessman Henry Dunant, who wrote a book about what he saw called A Memory of Solverino.
In his book, Dunant put forward two ideas: one being to
create volunteer medical services to help wounded people on battlefields; and one
for an international agreement to be adopted to protect these wounded people
and all those who attended to them.
As a result, the International Committee for the Relief of
the Wounded was founded in 1863. In 1864, the first Geneva Convention was
adopted by 10 states and the first national societies were formed. Then, in
1876, the committee was renamed the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC).
Several decades later, in 1919, the League of Red Cross
Societies, now known as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies, was formed to co-ordinate the activities of national societies
worldwide.
The exhibition not only aims to commemorate the birth of the
Red Cross, but also to pay tribute to the work done by the ICRC in South Africa
between 1963 and 1991.
In 1963, the ICRC started visiting political detainees on Robben Island.
It also visited thousands of prisoners countrywide and assisted their families
with food and travel tickets to visit their detained family members, according
to the committee's regional delegation's head of communications, Annemarie
Watt.
Photographs on display will show the work of the Red Cross over
the last 150 years, and exclusive photographs will show its work during the apartheid
years.
On the opening day, 24 June, the exhibition will be for invited
guests only, but it opens to the public on Friday 25; entrance is free.
"The exhibition forms part of the International Red Cross
Red Crescent Movement's global campaign entitled Our world, your move, which is
a call to action for individuals to make a difference in the world," says Watt.
Anne Frank - a history for today
The Anne Frank exhibition runs until 30 June in the Women's Jail Atrium. It was
opened by Hans Westra, the executive director of Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, in Holland.
Guest speakers included Ahmed Kathrada, one of the Rivonia
trialists, and Ferial Haffajee, the former editor-in-chief of the Mail and
Guardian newspaper and now the editor-in-chief of City Press newspaper.
The exhibition is open from 9am to 4pm during the week and
from 10am to 2pm on Saturdays. It is hosted by the Constitution Hill Trust, the
Johannesburg Holocaust Centre and Anne Frank House.
"Similar exhibitions will open in 20 centres worldwide this
month," says the Johannesburg Holocaust Centre's project manager, Janine Cohen.
The Anne Frank exhibition is used as a foundation for
educational work, capturing the experience of Anne's life as a young Jewish
girl hiding from the Nazis during the German occupation of The Netherlands in
the Second World War, Cohen explains.
Young guides will receive special training to ensure that
learners maximise their experience of the exhibition, she says.
"A scaled model of Anne Frank's hiding place accompanies the
exhibition. [It] was created by inmates of Wakefield,
one of Britain's
highest security prisons, who were inspired by the story of Anne Frank and the
tragic events of the Holocaust. The model was officially handed over by Tali
Nates, the director of the Johannesburg Holocaust Centre, at a moving ceremony
in Amsterdam
recently."
Parking is available at the super basement just off Joubert Street, on
level six. For more information, contact Thuli Malinga on 011 640 3100 or email
her on
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.
Children's rights lecture
A children's rights lecture was held on 14 June in conjunction with the Anne
Frank exhibition, under the auspices of Anne Frank House and the Johannesburg
Holocaust Centre. It was based on the inspiring story of Janusz Korczak.
His story was captured in a book, Champion of the Child,
written by Avi Tsur and Itzchak Belfer.
Korczak was a Polish-Jewish doctor, writer, educator and one
of the world's first advocates of children's rights, who devoted his life to
the needs and troubles of children, regardless of their nationality or
religion.
Leadership in South Africa
and torture
Constitution Hill is also hosting a Leadership in South Africa and torture seminar on
25 and 26 June from 11am to 1pm at the Old Fort Conference Room.
"The objective is to establish a learning community of
psychosocial service providers which includes creating spaces for current and
past torture rehabilitation service providers to meet, exchange ideas and draw
out lessons on the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of torture," says
Constitution Hill's acting public programmes co-ordinator, David Maziba.
Entrance is free and everyone can attend. Also at
Constitution Hill is a xenophobia exhibition, among others. A series of
photographs taken during the xenophobic attacks in South Africa in May 2008 will be
displayed, according to Maziba.
Entrance to all the events is free and everyone is welcome
to attend.
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