Middle School English and Art Departments took the 7th grade students to Amsterdam for the annual Anne Frank trip. Students visited the famous Annex, where Anne wrote her diary and the Westerbork Camp where Anne’s family spent their final days together. Though these visits, students saw the pages of their 7th-grade text, the Diary of Anne Frank come to life. In addition, they toured the Van Gogh museum and completed an art project which was a culmination of several weeks of in-class exploration of the painter’s life and work. Pondering the legacies of both Vincent and Anne, students realized that the past is never truly gone, but continues to exert its influence powerfully on the present.