Anne Frank House in Amsterdam

As a child, I read The Diary of Anne Frank at least twice, and was captivated by her story. Here was a girl, who didn’t seem all that different to me, except that she happened to be born in the wrong place at the wrong time. When I visited Amsterdam and walked past Anne Frank House, I absolutely had to go in, and the Anne Frank Museum turned out to be one of the best museums I’ve ever visited.

I think all the world knows who Anne Frank was: a young Jewish German girl, born in 1929, who was still just a child when anti-Semitism rose and World War II began. Anne loved to write, and she received a blank diary as a gift on her birthday in 1942. From this time, she wrote in it whenever possible, and these entries were later published in the famous book. During the latter years of the war, when Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps, Anne’s diary follows the news and her fears from her family’s hiding place. In late 1944, Anne’s family were discovered, and transported east. Just weeks before the end of the war, Anne died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Her diary remained, and her beautifully-written story became legendary, and the Anne Frank Museum has grown out of it. The museum is housed behind the very green door of the very house where Anne Frank lived with her family in hiding. Parts of their apartment, known as the Secret Annex, where Anne and her family hid there during the war, are still preserved, not as they left them, but empty because their furniture and belongings were taken away immediately after their arrest. In fact, the Anne Frank Museum opened up in the house in 1960, but it grew too large and needed to take over the building next door as well, which was opened in 1999. Their apartment was over a warehouse and office where Anne’s father worked.

The exhibits gathered for the Anne Frank Museum are fascinating. Authentic, original documents include lists of “Jew transports” to concentration camps which include the names of the Frank family members, letters from Anne and family members, and of course the famous diary itself. Video footage is also shown of interviews with Anne’s father and one of his employees who had helped them hide. It’s an emotional display, but despite the sad ending to Anne’s life, there seems to be enough positive emotion from her courage and cheerfulness in the face of such a bad situation that I can away feeling somehow uplifted. But not only is the subject matter fascinating, the museum is so well curated that there’s something for everybody to gain from a visit to the Anne Frank Museum.