Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam, a visit to remember (Anne Franks House)

Member Name: julwhite

Product:	Anne Franks House
Date:	06/03/08 (84 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reminds you what many went through in World War Two

Disadvantages: Hard to forget, a very sobering experience

Having a strong interest in history, one of the first places I wanted to visit in my weekend trip to Amsterdam was Anne Frank's house.

Anne Frank's diaries are famous the world over, telling her story of when she, her family and another family, stayed in hiding in an attic in a house in Amsterdam. She wrote the diaries to occupy herself during her long days in the house and she recorded her inner-most thoughts about her life and that of the others in hiding.

The building is situated on the Prinsengracht, next to one of the canals in central Amsterdam. Signing for locations in Amsterdam I found to be generally quite poor, but the signing for the Anne Frank House was much better and it was easy to find.

The opening hours are the longest of any museum I can think of, open 365 days this leap year (even open on Christmas Day, shutting only for Yom Kippur). In the summer the museum stays open until 10pm on some nights, making it accessible to anyone whenever they go to Amsterdam.

The entry fee is 7.50 Euros at time of writing (roughly about five pounds) and there is a small free guide book given to you when you enter, available in many different languages. Like when anyone visits a concentration camp, a war site or similar venues, the visit is very personal, and for me, the memory of my visit remains very fresh and I think about it often.

I went to the museum at opening at 9am on a cold Friday morning in February. I did so to try and catch the house as quiet as possible, and although there was a queue waiting to get in, overall I found the experience to be a solitary one as the museum was relatively quiet.

You walk round on your own without a guide so you can go at your own pace, walking through the rooms of what were the offices in the building, and then suddenly in front of you is the bookcase which hid the stairs up to the secret annexe. I found it a great surprise to see it in "real life" and climbed the staircase into the rooms.

The first room is that of Anne Frank's parents, Otto and Edith, which they shared with Anne's elder sister, Margot. The rooms are not furnished, this was a decision made by Otto Frank after the war. The rooms were though furnished during a television show made in the house, and there are some pictures around the museum of what the rooms looked like furnished.

Walking round that first room, without furniture, but with the marks on the wall of where Otto recorded the height of his two growing girls, was sobering and fascinating. Next door was Anne Frank's own room, which she shared with Fritz Pfeffer. The original wallpaper, stained and worn was still on the wall, covered over by protective glass.

There then followed the bathroom, which is quite large, still with the original toilet and sink that the families in hiding used. To avoid being heard by the workers downstairs, who didn't know that the families were in hiding in the upper part of the house, they couldn't use these facilities in the day.

There are then stairs to go up to the next floor. As with a lot of Amsterdam buildings, the stairs are very steep. This is because many years ago the buildings in the city were taxed on their width, so the Dutch builders built many storeys high and many staircases are steep because of that lack of space. Unfortunately if you are disabled, you wouldn't be able to access this part of the building, and indeed, the museum is probably much less relevant without being able to visit the actual rooms.

Once on the next floor, there is the room of the van Pels family, Hermann and Auguste. This room was also used as the lounge for everyone in hiding. Next door in what was a corridor to the attic is their son's room, Peter van Pels.

Peter's room for me was the most touching. There was no-one else on the floor when I was in this room, and seeing the steps up to the attic, the space where his bed was and the original board game he was given as a present for his birthday on the wall (again behind glass to protect it) was really thought provoking. Peter was just 16, and to imagine what he had to go through was just unbelievably sobering.

The museum then goes through to a neighbouring building, where there are some displays of original items left in the house, including Anne Frank's original diary, details of what happened to those in hiding after they had been caught, and numerous televisions showing films and documentaries.

After visiting these rooms you go back through to a room with many computers which have inter-active displays. These have a wealth of information about the house, in many languages, and I spent some time reading all that was available on these computers. One computer wasn't working, but was soon fixed by one of the staff who was very aware of making sure everything was kept spotless and organised.

Also in this room there are some computers where you can "leave a leaf" to mark your visit to the house, and this also sends an e-mail to you if you want. You can also send a free video message which is recorded by a small webcam type camera above the computer, and send this to a friend by e-mail.

After this there is a well-stocked shop where you can buy the book in many languages, including an exclusive version only available in the shop. The items in the shop are reasonably priced and there is lots of choice.

Leaving the museum is easy, but forgetting the visit is hard. The members of the house were arrested by German police on August 4th 1944 after someone tipped them off that they were in hiding, that person has never been idenitifed.

Hermann van Pels was gassed in October 1944, Edith Frank died in Auschwitz in January 1945, Margot Frank died in Bergen Belsen in March 1945, Anne Frank died just days after Margot in the same concentration camp, Auguste van Pels died in May 1945 and Otto Frank survived the war. After the war he went back to the house and was given the diaries of Anne which had been left by the Germans on the floor.

For me the tragedy which struck me the most was the death of Peter van Pels on May 5th 1945, who died in Mauthausen concentration camp, the day after it was liberated by the allied forces. It brought home to me the desperate waste of life and the tragedy of what he had been through.

And that is why I rate this museum highly. The money you pay goes towards the Anne Frank charity which promotes peace, understanding and education. As I walked out of the museum I felt a sense of being over-whelmed by what happened in that house. I know that there were many such instances, but a visit to the museum was almost spiritual and showed the inner strength of youngsters like Anne Frank and Peter van Pels in the most trying of times possible to imagine.

Summary: They call it a house with a history, it certainly is.