"Retracing Anne Frank's Footsteps", a program on the history of Anne Frank's life from 1929 to 1945, will be presented at Warsaw Community Public Library March 29.
Michelle Ball, a teacher at Pierceton Elementary, will lead the program that begins at 6 p.m.
She will address the places where Frank spent her life, people in Europe that Ball interviewed (including Holocaust survivors), and she will speak about what makes the Holocaust a unique genocide.
This program is free of charge, open to the general public, and will be held at the Warsaw Community Public Library. People may contact the library at 574-267-6011 to reserve a seat.
Ball has taught fourth grade at Pierceton Elementary School for 17 years.
She became interested in Frank's story and legacy when she read her diary in English class at Warsaw Community High School.
Since that time, she carried her love for Frank in her back pocket and feels fortunate for the opportunity to teach hundreds of students Frank's story as well as the enduring hope that her life teaches us all.
In summer 2010, Ball spent 47 days in Europe, retracing Frank's footsteps, thanks to a Teacher Creativity Fellowship grant that she received from the Lilly Endowment.
One of the longest standing programs in Indiana, to help educators, is the Lilly Endowment's Teacher Creativity Fellowship Program, which began in 1987 as a program for Indiana's public school teachers.
The Lilly Endowment has evolved over the years to expand eligibility to teachers in private and parochial schools and to principals and assistant principals.
The commitment behind this competitive program is to help Indiana become a rewarding arena for teachers and other education professionals.
During Ball's time in Europe, she traveled throughout Germany, Poland, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands. She visited the places where Frank spent her life, learning Jewish history dating back to the 12th century, and deepening her experiences to further understand what makes the Holocaust such a tragic human event as well as a distinct genocide.
Thanks to the Lilly Endowment and these travel experiences, she's able to teach about Frank on an even deeper level, provide more of a historical context for the years of Frank's life, and can speak in the first person regarding the framework of events she witnessed that took place during World War II and the Holocaust.
As a classroom teacher, Ball's main objective has been to build solid background knowledge in the minds of young students so, as they continue through life, they'll always be able to carry the message of Frank to others.
"My hope is that the essence of Anne Frank's message stays in the hearts and minds of my students as a lesson of hope in the face of adversity; because, on many levels, life can definitely be full of adversity," Ball said.
During fall 2010, Ball taught an after-school class to fourth- and fifth-graders on the topic of Frank's life.
Ball has been so moved by this project and the places and people who have touched her life, she feels compelled to teach Frank's story on an even broader level and have been presenting to numerous service clubs and libraries.
Her current class at Pierceton Elementary School is involved in an Auschwitz Memorial Project in conjunction with the Youth Services Bureau in Huntington.
Frank and her sister were prisoners at Auschwitz from September to November 1944.
Ball's fourth-graders are collecting paperclips, photos from Auschwitz, and facts they believe to be important about Auschwitz to help these students from Huntington North High School.
They are contributing to their goal of 6,000 paperclips - each representing a person who was killed daily at Auschwitz.
