Earlier this year, while we were in Amsterdam, we visited the Anne Frank House one grey, drizzly morning. It was a short walk from our B&B and after a lovely breakfast of fruit, scrambled eggs and croisssant,s we meandered there along the picturesque canals. Amsterdam is one of the loveliest cities in Europe because of the water and quaint arched bridges, the canal boats and tall narrow houses, the good food and delightful cafes. We were one of the early arrivals at the Anne Frank House so we could go straight in and the thin, tall house was not overly crowded with visitors. I suppose we were not expecting how strongly we would be effected by our visit.
We began in the basement where the goods from the Frank business were stored and level by level made our way up the steep staircase to each storey of the house, up the main office on the first floor and then up again to another level of public rooms. At Otto Frank’s request, the house is empty of furniture - that was the way the Nazi’s left it and that was the way Otto Frank wanted it to remain, as a stark, physical reminder of what happened at the house. There were photographs and video interviews at each stage along the way and across one set of the upper level windows was overlayed a photograph of a view taken of the street outside during the Nazi occupation - it was strangely creepy to stand there and see the view from the past, especially as the occupants at that time had also witnessed other families being taken away by the Nazis from that window.
The hidden rooms are accessed by a secret door behind a bookcase. We climbed up a set of steep stairs and were in the upstairs attic rooms where the Frank family hid. Everyone fell silent as we moved softly and uneasily around the rooms - it felt as if we treaded on graves. The room that Anne shared with her sister was the most upsetting - the photographs that she had cut out from film magazines were still stuck on the walls by where her bed would have been, preserved behind glass frames. I used to put posters of my favourite movie stars and singers cut out from magazines on the wall by my bed when I was a kid - how many of you have also done that? And, of course, like Anne Frank, I had always wanted to be a writer, even as a child.
After the visit, we went down to the cafe in the new annexe next to the original house. It’s a beautiful space, with plate glass windows on two sides so you can seem to float above the canal and next to to the Westerkerk. We had coffee, looking down at the cyclists and swans on the canal but it felt strangely disturbing. We loved sitting there sipping coffee and we were loving our holiday in Amsterdam. And yet, we felt uneasily guilty at that pleasure when we thought of the terrible events in that house and what happened to its occupants.
The thing is, if you think about these things too much, you realise you are surrounded by the history of terrible inhumanity wherever you are. It wasn’t just the Frank family that experienced the tragedy of the Holocaust - thousands of other families did so too in Amsterdam and millions across Europe. And of course, it’s not just in that period or in Europe that such horrors occurred - they are still going on in places all around the world now.
I suppose I take comfort in the stories of humanity and courage that come out of such times of which Anne Frank’s story is just one. The Anne Frank House, for me, reminds us that we can find joy, pleasure and hope even in the most horrible times. And that we should appreciate such moments whenever and wherever we can have them.
Enjoy this little video that the Anne Frank House put up on Youtube the other day - but do try to go to the house itself if you manage to get to Amsterdam.
You can find out more backgrond information about this film via the New York Times article, A Brief Glimpse of Anne Frank on Film
Photo: from Anne Frank House website
My cousin 
