The Department of German professor Kirsten Kumpf Baele received one of three awards for Outstanding Outreach and Public Engagement from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for 2021-22.

Public screening, followed by discussion with Director Sabine Gölz. Wednesday, April 27, 2022 from 6:00-8:30pm in 1010 BCSB.

Join us for the 46th Annual Symposium of the Society for German-American Studies starting today through April 23rd. This three-day event is filled with engaging sessions, interesting exhibits, and dynamic panel discussions. For more information, please register online or in person at the Old Capital Museum starting at 4:30pm. University of Iowa faculty and students are welcome to attend this year’s SGAS presentations.

Kirsten Kumpf Baele discusses Anne Frank and the sapling tree planting at the University of Iowa on IPR's "Talk of Iowa"

For many, Anne Frank’s name conjures imagery of a young Jewish girl with long dark hair and twinkling eyes, a secret hiding space, and of course, a diary.

On February 23, 1944, a 15-year-old girl gazed from an attic window at the topmost branches of a tree. In her diary, she wrote, “I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind. As long as this exists…and I may live to see it, this sunshine, these cloudless skies, while this lasts, I cannot be unhappy.” The girl was Anne Frank. She would die in a concentration camp less than a year after penning that entry. Decades later, the tree succumbed to old age; before it was removed, however, germinated chestnuts were collected, saplings sprouted, and Anne’s trees now grow all over Europe. Only a dozen so-called Anne Frank trees are rooted on U.S. soil, including at the Boston Commons and a 9/11 memorial park in New York City. The thirteenth will be planted on the University of Iowa Pentacrest on April 29, 2022. The tree was awarded to our campus and community in recognition of our literary heritage, for the UI’s excellence in tree stewardship, and in observation of the Pentacrest’s long history as a space of peaceful youth activism.

The University of Iowa Pentacrest Museums explores current exhibition Let Me Be Myself: The Life Story of Anne Frank through the Exhibition Spotlight program series in a special two-part virtual panel event.

This Provost's Global Forum brings together a multi-disciplinary panel of experts from Iowa and across Europe between February 28 - March 2, 2022, to highlight the educational value and continuing relevance of Anne Frank's story.

On this episode of Talk of Iowa, host Charity Nebbe explores the literature of the Holocaust, and the importance of reading books written about the Holocaust by those who witnessed the atrocities, with Elke Heckner.

“Emma’s research contributes to examining how fiction and mainstream media not only reflect public attitudes but influence them.” – Waltraud Maierhofer, Professor, German