The Torch Lighting Our Tree
By Elaine Meyers
A conversation with Bill Zimpfer, the chair of the Southern Cayuga Anne Frank Tree Project, was a natural start in celebrating the ten-year anniversary of the Anne Frank horse chestnut tree, which is planted on the campus of Southern Cayuga Central School. Southern Cayuga’s tree was dedicated on June 12, 2013, is flourishing in our soil and climate, and promises to live as long as the tree that grew outside the Secret Annex in Amsterdam where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis for over two years. One cannot understand our time with Anne Frank and her tree without knowing Bill Zimpfer—his is a unique torch lighting the story.
Bill and I met in his classroom, and I asked for a brief history of the project. “In 2004-05, I began to teach the Diary of Anne Frank stage play with our eighth graders as part of a unit on World War II. T. J. Barresi, my academic partner in this unit, taught the history of the War and I focused on the Holocaust and Anne’s story. One day, a friend, Phil Donovan, whose daughter had taken my class, sent me an article about the tree that grew outside the Secret Annex. The article was published in April of 2009 and you can still read it online. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/nyregion/17frank.html. It explained about the tree’s demise and that several saplings were going to be granted for sites in the U.S by the Anne Frank Center U.S.A.
“As I read the article, I realized that of the sites already selected by the Anne Frank Center USA for a sapling, none were a school. I knew that a school was a perfect setting for one of the saplings and with the help of our superintendent Mary Kay Worth and Martha Steenstra, our school business manager, we completed and submitted a grant application. The application was submitted in July of 2010, and in September of 2010 we got the call telling us our application was approved.”
I looked at Bill and asked if the decision surprised him. His smile and shining eyes illuminated his response. “I was pleased, delighted, and excited, but in a weird way I was not surprised. From the beginning of this project, my gut told me the tree would be ours.”
The tree remained in quarantine for two years to assure that it would not bring invasive fungi to the states. “Thanks to the help of the New York City Parks, our tree was quarantined with their tree (which is planted at the September 11 memorial) until spring of 2013. I was one of six people who began our planting ceremony for June 12, 2013—yes, on Anne’s birthday. Once the sapling was planted we began working to fulfill our promises made in the grant application for educational programs. Our dedication ceremony featured our new superintendent, Patrick Jensen, and Holocaust survivor Marian Blumenthal Lazan, the author of Four Perfect Pebbles.”
Bill and I discussed his growing confidence in our ability to be one of the best tree sites in the country. “Our school size is such an advantage. It is so easy to get things done and our administration is always open to new programs and building layers on existing programs. Our diversity is almost limited to our Central American families working on our dairy farms. A primary goal of the Tree Project is to connect our students with the outside world and a discussion of Anne and the Holocaust provides so many opportunities for discussion.”
Bill and I agreed that Southern Cayuga students have an impressive awareness and knowledge of the Holocaust and the impact of crimes against humanity. “Reading the stage play of Anne Frank sparks a connection for students with a girl their own age, a girl that thinks like they do and can make them relate to her life. One of my favorite assignments in our study is the ‘Hiding Box Project’. Students had to take a shoe box and fill it with what they would take into hiding if they found themselves in Anne’s situation. They quickly learned how much they had to leave behind, and were personally struck by the injustice Anne and her family suffered. This exposure to raw bigotry was a new experience for most of my students.”
I asked Bill to choose three photos that would capture the Anne Frank Tree experience. “The first photo would always be of our June 12 Birthday Celebration—all the children from Emily Howland Elementary gathered around the tree in the shape of a heart, singing Happy Birthday to Anne. The second photo would be of our students talking with Jack Mayer in May of 2017. Jack wrote the book Life in a Jar. Jack talked with students about the impact of Kansas high school girls who made sure the story of Irena Sendler, a Polish Catholic social worker who organized a rescue network in the Warsaw ghetto that saved the lives of 2,500 Jewish children, was not lost to the world.”
Bill paused and the light in his eyes grew even brighter as he described his third photo. “My last photo is really a montage…of many people who come to the tree. They come from all over the state, authors who do programs, visitors from other states who have come specifically to see our tree. This tree has put us on the map and says all we need to say about our work and how proud we are to bring Anne’s insights to others. This work is humbling. Anne was a 14-year-old girl, who lived and wrote in one room, died in a concentration camp, and changed the world. I cannot imagine working for a better cause.” Bill Zimpfer is a torch that continues to light our way.