Page 40 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2016 - Amsterdam

38 ❯❯ Top 10 Amsterdam Highlights

Anne Frank House

This deeply moving museum tells a tragic story. When, in 1942,
the Germans began to round up Jews in Amsterdam, the Frank
and Van Pels families went into hiding. For 25 months, they hid in a
secret annexe in the Anne Frank Huis. In August 1944, they were
betrayed and deported. Only Otto survived. The diary of his
daughter Anne, who died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in
February 1945 at the age of 15, has made her one of the most
inspiring figures of the 20th century. The ever-popular museum
attracts more than a million visitors each year.
The
1 Anne’s Room 4
Warehouse
After Margot
Otto Frank’s business moved in with her
made pectin for jam, and parents, Anne had to
spice and herb mixtures. share her room (right)
The annexe was over his with a new member of
warehouse (below); the the group, a dentist
families had to keep quiet called Fritz Pfeffer – in
for fear that the workers Anne’s estimation,
would hear them. “a very nice man”.
Anne’s film-star pin-ups
are still up on the wall.
The Secret
5
Annexe
The claustrophobic
rooms in which the
eight lived have been
left unfurn ished, as
they were when cleared
of possessions by the
Germans after their
The Offices
2 arrest. On one wall,
pencil marks record
Upstairs are the
offices of Otto Frank and the growth of Anne
the staff who helped to and her sister, Margot.
hide him and his family,
Peter’s Room
along with Otto’s busi- 6
ness partner, Hermann The small refuge
van Pels, and his wife of Peter van Pels (right)
and son. In Anne’s was the room behind
diary, the Van Pels the attic. Anne often
The Front Attic
became the Van Daans. spent time here talking 7
with Peter. In a moving display
The Moveable 3 in the front attic, visitors
Bookcase learn the fate of each
To hide the entrance to member of the group
the annexe, one of the after they were betrayed
helpers made a swinging to the Nazis. Tragically,
bookcase (right). As Anne and Margot
Anne wrote, “no one Frank died shortly
could ever suspect that before Bergen-Belsen
there could be so many concentration camp
rooms hidden behind…” was liberated.

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