Artwork > Holocaust & Genocide Memorial

“From my favorite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the
bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine,
appearing like silver, and at the sea gulls and other birds as they
glide on the wind…I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles."

Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl,
February 23, 1944

SONOMA STATE UNIVERSITY
Planting of the Anne Frank Sapling
Erna and Arthur Salm Holocaust + Genocide Memorial Grove
Public Ceremony April 14, 2013

The courage and inspiration of Anne Frank is honored with the planting of a sapling taken from the mother chestnut tree that often gave Frank hope as she hid from the Nazis in World War II.

Sonoma State University is one of only 11 recipients of the Anne Frank tree saplings in the United States.

The public planting ceremony took place on Sunday, April 14 at the Erna and Arthur Salm Holocaust & Genocide Memorial Grove created by Professor Jann Nunn.

The memorial features a twelve-foot tall light tower sculpture. Railroad tracks, symbolic of the Nazi deportations, converge at the tower’s black granite base bearing the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
Bricks laid between the rails are inscribed with names and places of those who endured the horrors of genocide including Native American, Armenian, Cambodia, Rwanda and Darfur.

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
Anne Frank