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Anne Frank house: Sad reminder of WW2

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Anne Frank is the one sight you should pre-book for an Amsterdam visit, as during refurbishment they sell tickets only online (EUR10, not eligible for Museum card) and allocate 15min entry time slots to visitors. The place is booked up a month in advance (3rd most visited museum after Rijksmuseum & Van Gogh museum in Holland in a comparably small house), but it is worth the wait? 

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

– Anne Frank

Being jewish, Anne Frank, her mum / dad / sister and four friends used the house (her fathers offices) on Prinsengracht to hide 25 month from persecution by the Nazi’s. Throughout the period, Amsterdamers supported the effort providing food etc. Sadly, the Frank’s were betrayed and discovered shortly before the end of the war. All were subsequently put on some of the last trains to concentration camps, where Anne Frank died. Only one of them, Otto Frank, survived. 

stippenkaart_370
A’dams jewish population shown in dots

Specifically they hid in a secret annex, whose existence was concealed on all four sides and that was entered through a hidden door behind bookshelves. The hiding place measured 46sqm and had relevant facilities though things like water use was restricted when other people where in the building and tiptoeing around as well as whispering became a life saving necessity. 

Anne Frank grew famous because of these circumstances and the diary she wrote while in hiding that was’t taken by the Nazi’s. This diary was published in 1947 in Dutch (“Het Achterhuis’ = the annex) and later translated into English under the title “The diary of a young girl”. 

diary

I guess the combination of circumstances, the emotional diary (and fame of its publication) and the jewish/Nazi theme make the place attractive to many visitors that want to see the location first hand. I think its a bit overrated and rather recommend reading the diary itself. 

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