First, let me just lay this out there.....typically when you name a kindergarten in Germany....you name it after the city, the village, or the neighborhood. You might pick out some historical figure from the region. You typically don't name it after Chancellor Kohl or Merkel, or dead Kaisers, or 1950s political figures.
So we have this kindergarten in the eastern region (Tangerhütte, 10,500 population, about an hour west of Berlin)....still in the old DDR region....that had this kindergarten named after Anne Frank.
At some point in the beginning of 2023, there was some talk of 'change' coming (hinted of renovation) for the kindergarten, and the name-change idea came up.....to dump the 'Anne Frank' name on the kindergarten.
From regional chatter, one gets the impression that the 'head' of the kindergarten pursued this, with the idea that 'Anne Frank' could not be conveyed to 4 and 5 year old kids....so they wanted a fresh new name....that could be easily conveyed to little kids.
Some local media (no one ever cites who) says that migrant parents aren't happy with the Jewish girl name business. I tend to view this story as 'BS'. Kindergartens in the town? Two. The second one has a name related to a German education official....who passed on in 1852. If you brought up the name in town.....to be honest, I doubt if more than ten (of the 10,500) know the legend of Fredrich Froebel. So selling his story to migrant four and five year olds....is just as hard.
Where things stand at this point on the name change idea? They got a lot of harsh criticism and have shut down change conversation presently. I'd say the change deal will be put off for a minimum of a year. It might never even be brought up again.
No comments:
Post a Comment