Anne and Settela shared the same fate. Why is one constantly remembered and the other one almost never remembered? Why could one write a diary and the other one could not? Why is there an Anne Frank Day on 12 June and not also a Settela Steinbach Day on 23 December? These would be thoughts that teachers and their students at the 266 Anne Frank Schools could pursue, today, on Anne Frank Day…

The well-known photo of Anne Frank was borrowed from the website of the Anne Frank House in Berlin. The picture of Settela is from the film “Departure of the Deportation Train May 19, 1944” in the Dutch Camp Westerbork, filmed by Rudolf Breslauer. Shortly afterwards, 20 km north of Westerbork, in the Dutch town of Assen, some wagons of the Belgian transport XXV (25) from the Kazerne Dossin camp at Mechelen are attached, then the train travels on further east, towards Auschwitz, with Jews and Dutch Sinti, among them Settela Steinbach. From: Westerbork Filmmontage Rolle 1 (RVD cat.nr. 02-1167-01) courtesy of Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid | OpenImages. BUM20200415_31 19440519. Deportation Train (20200414 v20200415) Michel van der Burg | Settela.com

(Link to a video of Rudolf Breslauer’s film strip: https://youtu.be/uZSsTegI8y4)