October 17, 2024

Thursday, October 17, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

Kamala is always busy.

May this be the result plus winning the Electoral College too, of course.

Bob Woodward paid tribute to Biden-Harris.

New Ad from Harris-Walz.

Biden to travel to Germany this week, Angola in December for visits delayed by Hurricane Milton.

President Biden with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

This article makes clear the Biden-Harris European foreign policy and also restates the Trump-Vance policy toward Russia and Ukraine.👇

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is heading to Germany Thursday and will visit Angola the first week in December, rescheduling visits that were postponed so he could remain in Washington to monitor the federal response to Hurricane Milton as it struck Florida.

The White House confirmed Biden will depart for his quick trip to Berlin on Thursday. It will offer him the opportunity to huddle with his key ally, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, about their countries’ support for Ukraine in its war with Russia as the conflict is at another critical moment.

Biden’s initial itinerary for the postponed trip included a meeting on the war in Ukraine with allied nations at an American military base in Germany before he was to continue on to Angola.

The White House says that the gathering of representatives of the allied nations, partners in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, will instead take place virtually next month. Still, the war in Ukraine will loom large during Biden’s time in Berlin this week.

Biden spoke by phone Wednesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but they will not meet while the president is in Germany.

The two leaders discussed Zelenskyy’s “victory plan,” shortly after the Ukrainian leader presented it to his parliament . Zelenskyy is scheduled to present the five-point plan to the European Council on Thursday.

Zelenskyy had previously spoken to Biden about the proposal.

The plan includes an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO and permission to use Western-supplied longer-range missiles to strike military targets deep inside Russian territory — steps that have been met with reluctance by Kyiv’s allies so far.

The White House on Wednesday declined to comment about the plan.

“We’re going to let the Ukrainians speak to their victory plan,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. “What we’re going to continue to do is show our support for the Ukrainians on the battlefield as they continue to beat back Russia.”

Zelenskyy said in a statement following the call he also spoke to Biden about the U.S. and Ukraine potentially exploring ways to produce weapons together.

The Biden administration also announced a further $425 million in military assistance to Ukraine, bringing its total to more than $64 billion in the two and a half years since Russia’s invasion. Wednesday’s package includes surface-to-air missiles to protect Ukrainian infrastructure from Russian attacks and long range rockets and artillery to help its war effort.

Biden and Scholz recently spoke by phone to discuss the need for the countries to “continue our strong collaboration on geopolitical priorities, including supporting Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression,” according to the White House.

Jean-Pierre said the trip was important to Biden, in part because of Germany’s help with a complicated hostage swap with Russia.

“The president really wanted to make sure to go to Germany to thank Chancellor Scholz directly,” she said.

Scholz in a speech before the German parliament on Wednesday said he was looking forward to Biden’s visit. “I would like to say that … President Biden stands for an incredible improvement in cooperation over recent years,” said Scholz, adding that he was grateful for the “good collaboration” forged with the Democratic president.

There’s a significant measure of anxiety in Europe about what next month’s U.S. presidential election could mean for Ukraine.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, has been in lockstep with Biden about the need to maintain robust economic and military support for Ukraine.

Republican Donald Trump has said he would move to quickly to end the war the war with Russia should he regain the White House. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, has said that the plan would include establishing a “demilitarized zone” and that Ukraine would not reclaim territory that Russia occupies and would agree not to join NATO.

Scholz has been one of Biden’s closest global allies.

In addition to his robust support for Ukraine, Scholz played a critical role in helping free Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, corporate security executive Paul Whelan, and others from Russian prisons in a multinational prisoner swap.

As part of the biggest prisoner exchange in post-Soviet history, Scholz agreed to release Vadim Krasikov, a Russian who was convicted of the 2019 murder of a 40-year-old Georgian citizen who had fought Russian troops in Chechnya and later claimed asylum in Germany.

Biden has not visited Africa since taking office in early 2021.

Jean-Pierre said the coming visit to Luanda aims to “recognize Angola’s role as a strategic partner and regional leader, and discuss increased collaboration on security, health, and economic partnerships.” (Associated Press).

One more thing.

Kamala was on Fox News last night.

When you see the clip of Trump Bret Baier showed during the half hour segment, you will know all you need to know about how Fox behaved.

Then watch the Vice President. You will see how she behaved too.

To repeat. Kamala Harris: Bret, I'm sorry, and with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about the enemy within that he has repeated when he is speaking about the American people. That's not what you just showed.

Last look. Enough.

Bret Baier was what we might expect from a Fox “journalist,” lying, interpreting and fighting with the Vice President as if he was Trump’s surrogate.

As to the Vice President, Harry Sisson nails it.👇

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New Court actions that count in 2024.

In Georgia, there will be no hand-counting of ballots this year.

You may recall that three individuals on the State Board on September 18 voted to require 2024 Election ballots be hand-counted. This threatened to delay and subject the vote of the citizens of Georgia to mishandling, debate and chaos. These are the same three individuals who Donald Trump saluted during his August rally in Georgia.

In September, Republican members of the Georgia State Board of Elections - Dr. Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares and Janelle King - passed rules that threatened to disrupt the 2024 election.

Judge Robert C.I. McBurney ruled on Tuesday that this rule couldn’t go into effect, at least not for 2024.

Here is his verdict:

A rule that introduces a new and substantive role on the eve of election for more than 7,500 poll workers who will not have received any formal, cohesive, or consistent training and that allows for our paper ballots -- the only tangible proof of who voted for whom -- to be handled multiple times by multiple people following an exhausting Election Day all before they are securely transported to the official tabulation center does not contribute to lessening the tension or boosting the confidence of the public for this election. Perhaps for a subsequent election, after the Secretary of State’s Office and the 150+ local election boards have time to prepare, budget, and train -- but not for this one.”

Judge McBurney also ruled local election board members in Georgia cannot refuse to certify election results in any scenario, even if they report concerns about fraud or errors.

“If election superintendents were,as Plaintiff urges, free to play investigator, prosecutor, jury, and judge and so — because of a unilateral determination of error or fraud — refuse to certify election results, Georgia voters would be silenced,” Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his decision. “Our Constitution and our Election Code do not allow for that to happen.”

In Nebraska, we can carry Dan Osborn, the political independent to the Senate, and remove Nebraska’s incumbent MAGA Senator Deb Fischer.

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Remember the House is up for grabs and could turn Blue.

Scott Perry seemed to be in a good mood. When I found him on a recent Saturday, the Pennsylvania representative was visiting a local Republican office, joking with volunteers as he helped them prepare campaign materials for canvassers who would be knocking doors later that day. Perry was friendly with me too, until I asked whether he regretted any of his actions leading up to January 6.

That’s when I got a taste of Perry’s pugilistic side, which has both endeared him to conservative hard-liners and convinced Democrats that they can defeat him next month.

And what were those actions, sir?” he replied, as if testing me.

Perry, a former chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus who was first elected in 2012, had reportedly done plenty to aid former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The FBI seized Perry’s cellphone in 2022, which led to the revelation of text messages showing his extensive attempts to install an attorney general who would help keep Trump in office. Perry’s preferred candidate was Jeffrey Clark, a now-indicted Department of Justice official whose main qualification was spreading claims of election fraud.

I started by noting that Perry was the one who’d introduced Trump and Clark. He cut me off.

“An introduction?” he said, incredulously. “Is that illegal now?” Perry accused me of repeating “a narrative that has been promoted by the left” that the mainstream media have refused to verify. “Somebody said, Can you introduce me? I said sure,” he explained, saying it was no different than if he had introduced me to one of his aides standing nearby. “So no, I’m not embarrassed.”

Whether Perry agrees with it or not, the “narrative” about his role ahead of the January 6 assault on the Capitol is part of why he’s the most vulnerable Trump loyalist in the House. “For a lot of normie, older Republicans, all that January 6 stuff was really a line of demarcation,” Christopher Nicholas, a GOP strategist who lives in Perry’s district, told me. In their hunt for a House majority, Democrats are targeting Perry like never before, and they’re running a candidate, the former local-news anchor Janelle Stelson, who can match both his regional fame and his fundraising.

The race could help determine the House majority, and in the state that could decide the presidency, Perry is once again sharing a ballot with the ally he tried to keep in office four years ago.

The issues that have defined Trump’s comeback attempt—immigration, abortion, trying to overturn the 2020 election—have also figured prominently in Perry’s race. Until this year, Perry had demonstrated even more political resilience than Trump; he outran him in 2020, winning his district while Trump narrowly lost Pennsylvania. That might not be the case in November. Both of their races are toss-ups, but at the moment, the bigger underdog might be Perry.

Perry’s district, which includes Harrisburg as well as nearby suburbs and small towns, became significantly bluer after Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court redrew the state’s congressional map in 2018. Trump won the new district by just four points in 2020, and two years later, the Democrat Josh Shapiro carried it by 12 points during his victorious campaign for governor.

Perry’s district may have shifted, but he has not. He’s a small-government conservative known for opposing bipartisan deals in Washington and prodding GOP leaders to dig in against Democrats, even if it results in a government shutdown or a debt default. Perry scoffs at “so-called Republicans” who say he should moderate his stances or his approach in order to accommodate the additional Democrats he now represents. “Doing the right thing is always doing the right thing,” he told me.

So far, his stubbornness has paid off. After winning a close race in 2018, he’s padded his margins in each of the past two elections. In 2022, he defeated the Democrat Shamaine Daniels, a member of the Harrisburg city council, by more than seven points, running well ahead of the Republican candidates for Senate and governor in Pennsylvania that year. “That is a mystery to a lot of us,” State Representative Patty Kim, a Democrat running for a state-senate seat in the area, told me. “He goes further right, and he gets away with it.”

For Perry, what’s changed this year is Stelson, whose decades on television in the Harrisburg market have made her a local celebrity and the most formidable challenger he has faced.

Janelle Stelson.

“She’s a trusted voice in the community,” Shapiro, who has campaigned for Stelson, told me in a phone interview. “She’s been in people’s living rooms for so many years.” I followed her as she canvassed a mostly Republican neighborhood that has been shifting left. People greeted her with the slightly startled look of finding a TV star at their doorstep. “Oh my goodness, Janelle Stelson,” Jeff White, a 66-year-old retired welder, told her. “You look even prettier in person than you do in the news.” Another man didn’t even wait for a knock on the door. He called out to her on the street, “Janelle, I’m voting for you!”

Stelson relishes these encounters. She tends to deviate from the list of houses that her campaign prepares for her, in search of harder targets. “My favorite words in the English language are I’m a Republican, and I’m voting for you,” she told me with a laugh. Stelson used to be a registered Republican, although she told me she hasn’t voted for a GOP presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan. She made sure her viewers knew nothing about her politics. “That makes them not hate you,” she said.

Democrats have found sufficient GOP support for Stelson to make them optimistic about her chances. Stelson told me her internal polls show her slightly ahead, and a survey released last week by a Harrisburg-based polling firm found her leading Perry by nine points. She has raised more than $4.5 million and, as of July, had more cash than Perry, who’s had to spend a considerable amount of his campaign funds on legal fees related to the 2020 election. (In 2022, by contrast, Daniels raised less than $500,000.) In an indication that Republicans are worried about Perry, the House GOP’s main super PAC began airing ads in his district.

Stelson describes herself as centrist, and although she mostly sticks to her party’s line on issues such as abortion and voting rights, she is more hawkish on immigration than even the most conservative Democrats. During a debate with Perry last week, she largely backed Trump’s call for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants (though she conceded that she doesn’t know how that might be accomplished). As part of her bid to win over Trump voters, Stelson declined for months to endorse Kamala Harris. When I asked her if she was voting for Harris, she replied that she would “absolutely support the Democratic ticket,” and then asked to go off the record. During the debate two days later, she confirmed that she would vote for Harris.

Stelson’s lack of a voting record—or really any history of expressing political views—has made her a difficult target for Republicans, who have tried criticizing her for living a few miles outside the district. “If you had to be nitpicky, that’s a big issue. But for me, it’s not,” Kim, the Democratic state representative, told me. Although Stelson has worked in the district for decades, Kim suggested that she may have taken a risk by not moving before the election: “I think there was an easy fix, but I respect her decision.”

Stelson says she decided to run after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022. She recalls being on air when the ruling came down, trying to keep her composure while describing the jubilant reactions of Republicans, particularly Perry. Abortion became a driving issue for Stelson’s campaign, and Perry has struggled to articulate a consistent position. He’s said the issue should be left to the states, and like Trump, he backs exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. But he has co-sponsored legislation called the Life at Conception Act, which guarantees “the right to life” for all people and says that a human life begins at “the moment of fertilization.” The bill doesn’t mention abortion, but Democrats say it would effectively ban the procedure. When I asked him whether he’d support a federal abortion ban with the exceptions he’s laid out, he said, “We don’t need to have that.” But he wouldn’t rule out voting for one if it came to the House floor: “I’m not going to get into hypotheticals.”

Perry is also elusive on a question that’s tripped up other Trump loyalists, most recently the vice-presidential nominee J. D. Vance: Did Joe Biden win the 2020 election? “Biden received the electoral votes necessary to win,” he told me. “I was right there at his inauguration. I saw him put his hand on the Bible,” Perry continued. “So there is no doubt that Joe Biden is the president.”

I was surprised to hear this from the man who’d suggested to the Trump administration that people in Italy might have used military satellites to manipulate the vote count. So I tried a second time: Did Biden legitimately win the election? Again, Perry pointed to Biden’s Electoral College win. He bristled when I asked whether Trump should stop telling voters that the election was stolen. “Should Donald Trump give up his First Amendment rights because you don’t like what he says?” Perry replied. Is Trump wrong? “Why don’t you ask Donald Trump that.”

I saw a different side of Perry as I accompanied him across his district. Trailed by a few aides but no TV cameras, Perry evinced a childlike enthusiasm while doing things that many candidates treat as requisite indignities of political life. At a local fair, he seemed to genuinely enjoy feeding goats and playing carnival games. (Perry drew the line at the mechanical bull: “There’s the headline: ‘Candidate Breaks Back.’”) In the newer, bluer part of his district, he attended an event at a community garden where a mural was being unveiled. He gleefully stuck his hands in paint and planted them on the mural, along with neighborhood children. Unlike almost everyone else, he made his prints upside down.

When Perry was a child, he moved to Pennsylvania with his mother, the daughter of Colombian immigrants. They were escaping his abusive father and lived for a time in a house without electricity or running water. “We often ate food that was not only day-old but expired,” Perry said during his debate with Stelson. “But we got through it.” During his 2018 campaign, he said he’d been “embarrassed and humiliated to be on public assistance.”

Few people know Perry better than Lauren Muglia. The two met in the Army in the early 1990s, and when he went into politics, she became his chief of staff. “We fight like cats and dogs, and that’s how it’s been for 30 years,” she told me as we walked through the fair. When Perry loaded up on chocolate treats at a bake sale, Muglia joked about his addiction to chocolate. “I represent Hershey!” he replied. Muglia told me that Perry enjoys arguing with his staff, especially when they encourage him to take a more moderate stance. “He’s not a person who likes yes-men,” she told me. I got the sense that Muglia wishes more voters saw the Perry she knows—a demanding boss but also a loyal friend.

The deprivation Perry experienced in his childhood was worse than what he’s shared publicly, Muglia told me. He and his brother would sometimes scrounge for food in dumpsters. His mother would post ads in newspapers in search of people who could watch them for weeks at a time while she worked as a flight attendant. As a 4-year-old, Perry would cry for hours when his mother dropped him and his brother off. One couple who was taking care of them left him in a shed used for storing corn so they wouldn’t have to hear him scream. After Perry stayed there, he told Muglia, the couple made headlines when a child died in their care. Perry recounted this story to her a few years ago without any emotion, but she was brought to tears.

Learning about another child’s suffering helped prompt Perry to change his mind on marijuana policy—the one issue on which he will admit to moderating his views over the years. Perry had been opposed to any legalization of cannabis, but he began hearing from constituents who benefitted from medical CBD. The conversation that finally flipped him, Muglia told me, was when a father told Perry about his epileptic daughter, who had 400 seizures a week and had to travel to Colorado to receive medical-CBD treatment. “I became convinced that I was in the wrong place,” Perry told me.

Yet for the most part, he remains as unyielding as ever, and that, more than anything, might prove to be his undoing. He usually finds a reason to vote no, and not only on Democratic proposals. For much of the campaign, Stelson has criticized Perry for opposing abortion rights and for his role leading up to January 6, but in the closing weeks, she is focusing just as much on casting him as a cause of Washington’s dysfunction.

The House Republican majority, distracted by leadership battles, has been historically unproductive, and Perry is often in the middle of the party’s infighting. Even when Congress has managed to enact significant legislation, Stelson points out, Perry has usually tried to stop it. Indeed, Democrats have found that highlighting Perry’s opposition to popular bipartisan bills, such as the 2021 infrastructure package and legislation extending health benefits to military veterans exposed to toxic burn pits, is their most effective message.

Perry justifies his “no” votes by saying that the bills he opposed spent too much money on unnecessary things. And he’s tried to appeal to voters beyond his base by pointing out that some of the proposals that he fought came from Republicans. “When the stuff that is unaffordable, unnecessary, unwanted, outweighs the stuff that we need, I’m going to vote the way I need to,” he told me. For Perry, in other words, the bad parts of legislation too often outweigh the good. His trouble is that, come November, voters in his district might make the same judgment about him. (The Atlantic).

Help Janelle Stelson beat Trump’s buddy, Scott Perry.PA-10
Even $5 would be a help.

https://app.oath.vote/donate?p=niemtzow-stelson&ref=PPIAM0N1

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Trump is always crazy.

Last night, at Univision.

Yesterday at the Fox News Women’s town hall.

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Endorsements

Billie Jean King. Watch! 👇

Top Black business leaders aim to motivate black men to vote for Kamala Harris.

A group of prominent Black business leaders are endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in an open letter, hoping to sway Black male voters who vote infrequently by arguing that her economic plans will improve the lives of Black workers and aspiring homeowners.

A crowd at a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris last week in Pittsburgh. The Black Economic Alliance, an organization focused on Black economic opportunity, has begun an outreach effort targeting 700,000 infrequent Black male voters in swing states

In a draft of the letter that was reviewed by The New York Times, former American Express chief executive Kenneth I. Chenault, BET Media Group chief executive Scott M. Mills and Mellody Hobson, chairwoman of the board at Starbucks, write that Ms. Harris’s plans would help spark a new generation of small-business owners, make buying a home more accessible and make post-high school education more affordable.

“Many of us have spent time with Vice President Harris and know that she understands what the private sector needs to grow, invest, and thrive — and how business leaders like us create good-paying jobs that strengthen our communities,” the letter states.

The letter is slated to be released on Wednesday. It has been signed by more than 50 Black business leaders, many of them from the worlds of investing, entertainment and retail.

The letter was organized by the Black Economic Alliance, a political action committee focused on improving work, wages and wealth in the Black community. Polling conducted by the PAC’s nonpartisan sibling organization has found that economic issues — including affordable housing, job creation, the cost of health care and the racial wealth gap — are the top concerns for Black male voters and that Black men and women trust Black business leaders most to talk about those issues.

In recent weeks, the Black Economic Alliance has begun an outreach effort targeting 700,000 infrequent Black male voters in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, encouraging them via text messaging and digital advertising to vote for the candidate who will prioritize economic opportunity in the Black community. An infrequent voter was defined as someone who had voted in 30 percent to 70 percent of recent elections. (New York Times).

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Victor Orban, Hungary’s dictator, is Trump and Vance’s role model.

Watch and understand who Vance is. 👇

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I really need this. How about you?

Federal Trade Commission Announces Final “Click-to-Cancel” Rule Making It Easier for Consumers to End Recurring Subscriptions and Memberships | Federal Trade Commission.

The Federal Trade Commission today announced a final “click-to-cancel” rule that will require sellers to make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up. Most of the final rule’s provisions will go into effect 180 days after it is published in the Federal Register.
“Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription,” said Commission Chair Lina M. Khan. “The FTC’s rule will end these tricks and traps, saving Americans time and money. Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want.”

The Commission’s updated rule will apply to almost all negative option programs in any media. The rule also will prohibit sellers from

• misrepresenting any material facts while using negative option marketing;
• require sellers to provide important information before obtaining consumers’ billing information and charging them;

• and require sellers to get consumers’ informed consent to the negative option features before charging them.

  The final rule announced today is part of the FTC’s ongoing review of its 1973 Negative Option Rule, which the agency is modernizing to combat unfair or deceptive practices related to subscriptions, memberships, and other recurring-payment programs in an increasingly digital economy where it’s easier than ever for businesses to sign up consumers for their products and services.

Commission approval and publication follows the March 2023 announcement of a notice of proposed rulemaking which resulted in more than 16,000 comments from consumers and federal and state government agencies, consumer groups, and trade associations.

While negative option marketing programs can be convenient for sellers and consumers, the FTC receives thousands of complaints about negative option and recurring subscription practices each year. The number of complaints has been steadily increasing over the past five years and in 2024 the Commission received nearly 70 consumer complaints per day on average, up from 42 per day in 2021.

The final rule will provide a consistent legal framework by prohibiting sellers from:

• misrepresenting any material fact made while marketing goods or services with a negative option feature;
• failing to clearly and conspicuously disclose material terms prior to obtaining a consumer’s billing information in connection with a negative option feature;
• failing to obtain a consumer’s express informed consent to the negative option feature before charging the consumer;
• and failing to provide a simple mechanism to cancel the negative option feature and immediately halt charges.

Following an evaluation of public comments, the Commission has voted to adopt a final rule with certain changes, most notably dropping a requirement that sellers provide annual reminders to consumers of the negative option feature of their subscription, and dropping a prohibition on sellers telling consumers seeking to cancel their subscription about plan modifications or reasons to keep to their existing agreement without first asking if they want to hear about them.

The Commission vote approving publication of the final rule in the Federal Register was 3-2, with Commissioners Melissa Holyoak and Andrew N. Ferguson voting no. Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter issued a separate statement and Commissioner Holyoak issued a separate dissenting statement.

FTC staff has developed a fact sheet summarizing the changes to the rule. The primary staffer on this matter is Katherine Johnson in the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. ( FTC.gov)

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Your Daily Reminder.

Trump is a convicted felon.

On May 30th, he was found guilty on 34 felony counts by the unanimous vote of 12 ordinary citizens.

The Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was scheduled to be sentenced on July 11th and September 18th. He will now be sentenced on November 26.

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A full-scale replica of Anne Frank’s hidden annex is headed to New York for an exhibit.

AMSTERDAM (AP) — The annex where the young Jewish diarist Anne Frank hid from Nazi occupiers during World War II is heading to New York.

A full-scale replica of the rooms that form the heart of the Anne Frank House museum on one of Amsterdam’s historic canals is being built in the Netherlands and will be shipped across the Atlantic for a show titled “ Anne Frank The Exhibition ” at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan.

“For the first time in history, the Anne Frank House will present what I would call a pioneering experience outside of Amsterdam. To immerse visitors in a full-scale, meticulous recreation of the secret annex. Those rooms where Anne Frank, her parents, her sister, four other Jews, spent more than two years hiding to evade Nazi capture,” Anne Frank House director Ronald Leopold told The Associated Press in an interview detailing the upcoming exhibition.

In July 1942, Anne Frank, then aged 13, her parents Otto and Edith, and her 16-year-old sister Margo went into hiding in the annex. They were joined a week later by the van Pels family — Hermann, Auguste and their 15-year-old son, Peter. Four months later, Fritz Pfeffer moved into the hiding place, also seeking to evade capture by the Netherlands’ Nazi German occupiers.

They stayed in the annex of rooms until they were discovered in 1944 and sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. Anne and her sister Margot were then moved to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they both died of typhus in February 1945. Anne was 15.

Her father, Otto, the only person from the annex to survive the Holocaust, published Anne’s diary after the war and it became a publishing sensation around the world as a symbol of hope and resilience in the face of tyranny.

Leopold said the New York exhibit promises to be “an immersive, interactive, captivating experience” for visitors.

It opens on Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

While the faithfully rebuilt annex of rooms will be the heart of the exhibit, it also will trace the history of Anne’s family from their time in Germany, their move to the Netherlands and decision to go into hiding, to their discovery by Nazis, deportation, Anne’s death and the postwar decision by her father to publish her diary.

“What we try to achieve with this exhibition is that people, our visitors will learn about Anne not just as a victim, but through the multifaceted lens of a life, as a teenage girl, as a writer, as a symbol of resilience and of strength. We hope that they will contemplate the context that shaped her life.”

The exhibition comes at a time of rising antisemitism and anger at the devastating war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza that has now spread to the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon following the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel.

“With ever fewer, fewer, survivors in our communities, with devastating antisemitism and other forms of group hatred on the rise in the U.S. but also across the world, we feel ... our responsibility as Anne Frank House has never been greater,” Leopold said. “And this exhibition is also in part a response to that responsibility to educate people to stand against antisemitism, to stand against group hatred.”

Anne’s diary will not be making the transatlantic trip.

“We unfortunately will not be able to travel with the diary, writings, the notebooks and the loose sheets that Anne wrote. They are too fragile, too vulnerable to travel,” Leopold said.

Among 125 exhibits that are traveling from Amsterdam for the New York exhibition are photos, albums, artefacts such as one of the yellow stars Jews were ordered to wear in the occupied Netherlands, as well as the Best Supporting Actress Oscar won by Shelley Winters for her role in George Stevens’ 1959 film “The Diary of Anne Frank.”

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