The Anne Frank House

      When Alaine and I arrived in Amsterdam, we made a point of it to go to the Anne Frank House first, because it is one of the main tourist attractions in Amsterdam. I had read the Diary of Anne Frank over the summer, so I was trying to put all of the pieces together as I was walking around. The museum was located across from a canal.  We entered the museum and walked through to the connected building, which was the original house and factory. The Anne Frank House was actually her father, Otto Frank’s, workplace. The front was full of offices, and the back was a factory where they produced spices and jams. Anne Frank, her family, and four other people lived in the upstairs of the factory for two years in hiding from the Nazis because they were Jewish. They hid behind a bookcase, which was a door, to the upstairs of the factory. It was very small, and the stairs to go up a level were very steep. It was almost like climbing a tree house!
    Throughout all of the rooms were quotations drawn out from her diary, as well as videos of interviews with people who knew the Franks. There were also dioramas that showed you what the “Secret Annex” looked like when they lived there. It was amazing to see where they lived and how they lived for two years! It was so small and very dark, much more gruesome than Anne explained in her diary. It was very hard to comprehend that they actually managed to live there, and I went there. I still cannot believe that someone told about their hiding location.