Fe wnes i ymweld a thy Anne Frank ar y Prinsengracht ym 1981. Roedd fy mrawd wedi mynd i weithio yn Amsterdam ac roedd e'n byw ar gwch ar y camlas reit tu fas i'r ty. Bob bore fe welais i bobl yn ciwio i fynd i mewn. Yn fuan iawn, fe es i hefyd. Fe wnaeth y profiad emosiynol hwn argraff fawr arnaf.
Fe welais i'r arddangosfa eto yn y Senedd Ewropeaidd yn Strasbourg yn 2001. Pryd hynny, roedd cefnder Anne Frank yn siarad amdani a'i bywyd.
I first visited the Anne Frank house on the Prinsengracht in 1981. My brother had gone to work in Amsterdam and lived on a houseboat on the canal right outside the house. Every morning I saw people queuing to go in. I soon joined them and was touched, like them, by this deeply moving experience.
I saw the exhibition again in the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 2001. On that very emotional occasion I was privileged to hear Anne Frank's cousin talking about her and her life.
It's wonderfully symbolic that the everyday diary of a girl - a young woman - has had such an impact on all our lives.
In any war it is the vulnerable who suffer the most and children are the most vulnerable of all. I have seen this in my visits to several countries. I have seen children living in terrible poverty in Soweto and under shocking conditions in Palestinian refugee camps. A few weeks ago I was in Iraq. I met lots of children there: some in hospitals suffering from malnutrition and diseases related to undernourishment and contaminated water; some playing barefoot on the streets - but all keen to speak to us - to know why we were there. They were delighted that I was from Wales and assumed I was a personal friend of Ryan Giggs!
But the reason I was there was because the shadow of war against Iraq hangs over us - the children most of all. Their lives hang in the balance. 42% of the population of Iraq are under 16 years old.
Last year in Tel Aviv I met the parents of a nine year old Israeli girl who had been killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber. They had helped form an organisation called "Parents for Peace", to work with others who, like them, had paid the highest price of any conflict - had lost their children in the violence. They had dedicated her short life to the cause of preventing other parents from suffering the agony they had gone through. They had put aside prejudice and propaganda and worked closely with Palestinians as well as other Israeli families.
I went to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg last September. Two hundred world leaders had come together to talk about a better future. But the voices of children - who make up nearly a third of the world's population - were drowned out by the voices of big business.
Thanks to this exhibition, inspired by a very special child, no one will ever forget the unique and terrible suffering of the Jewish people, and gypsies, homosexuals and others during the second world war. But Anne Frank also represents every child in the today's world: the children of Iraq, of South Africa, of Israel, of Palestine, of Wales. The world is poised once again on the brink of conflict. How many more children have to die before world leaders bring an end to this disastrous cycle of violence?
Mae rhaid i ni wrando ar leisiau plant - llais Anne Frank a phlant Cymru a'r byd. Os ydyn ni'n gwrando arnynt - a gwrando'n dda - gallem ddod a hiliaeth, anoddefiad a rhyfel i ben. Gallem helpu i adeiladu iddyn nhw yfory gwell.
We have to listen to the voices of the children - of Anne Frank and the children of Wales and the world. If we do - and if we really listen - we can bring an end to racism, intolerance and war. We can help build them a better tomorrow.
Jill Evans ASE/MEP
