The Route: Amsterdam to Bergen, Germany

Above map shows journey from Amsterdam east through small towns and backroads into Germany ending at the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp

Fellowship Rationale: May 4, 2012

 Having lost her entire family to the Holocaust, my grandmother’s perspectives on war and prejudice fostered my lifetime commitment supporting education and human rights.

Reading The Diary of Anne Frank as a teenager was more than history; it was my benchmark against discrimination and demonstrated the power of writing. Although 70 years since WW II, fanaticism and genocide persist in the world but my passion promoting human rights remains a personal and professional ethic.

Although I’ve only "met” Anne Frank through her Diary, I yearn to see where she lived, hid, and wrote. I aspire to write a documentary of her intellectual best in Amsterdam to her most desperate where she died in Germany’s Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp.

The Diary of Anne Frank remains a relevant springboard to develop empathy for human rights and provides compelling frame work comparing current discriminations with the past.

This Fellowship will allow me to journey from the “The Secret Annex” in Amsterdam to Germany, and create a documentary of Anne Frank’s legacy. The documentary will research and compare human rights issues of WWII with current policy toward minorities in Western Europe and the United States.

My project will reflect sociological implications of prejudice, compare current cultural migrations and related policies in the U.S. with Western Europe’s and improve rapport on important political human rights issues.

Studying Anne Frank’s influence with lens and notepad will help me grow intellectually and spiritually while helping a new generation of students learn about Anne Frank, the Holocaust, the power of documentaries and current issues on human rights.

Briefly....

Four activities occupy my time: family, reading, teaching, cycling. The reverse order also works.

Cycling provides an excellent springboard for travel, meeting new people and engaging in dialogue of current events.

I am a high school teacher in Fort Bend ISD in Sugar Land, Texas.

Cycling as primary means for  exploration from Amsterdam to Bergen, Germany, seems the ideal method and metaphor to learn about Anne Frank, The Holocaust that consumed many of my grandmother's family, and Western Europe's sentiments toward immigration and tolerance.

A recent photo (4.1.12) of me in San Antonio, Texas, competing in the Senior Olympics Games, wearing the North West Cycling Club team jersey.

April 17, 2012

April 17, 2012--Fund for Teachers Headquarters, Houston, Texas. Stephanie Ascherl, left, distributes Fellowship materials and congratulates new Fellows, including yours truly.

Fund For Teachers, Houston, Texas USA

Fund for Teachers  awards fellowships for self-designed, professional growth opportunities for PreK to 12^th grade teachers who recognize the value of inquiry, the power of knowledge, and their ability to make a difference.

My Fellowship, titled: "Cycle from the “Secret Annex” in Amsterdam to Germany’s Bergen Belsen Concentration camp documenting the legacy of Anne Frank and human rights awareness" received funding for me to travel to Amsterdam then bike east to Bergen, Germany, to create a documentary of Anne Frank's legacy in July, 2012.