Anne Frank’s House - August 18, 2019

Anne Frank's House may be the most popular attraction in Amsterdam. Her story has captivated the world and people make a pilgrimage to come here. Let me tell you a quick story as I have yet to read the entire book, Anne Frank was of Jewish descent. She lived in Frankfurt, Germany until she was 5 years old. But with the Nazi regime rounding up Jews and putting them in concentration camps, the Frank family left for the Netherlands and ended up staying in Amsterdam for many years. At this moment is when Anne Frank started writing in her journal at the age of 12!? With the Nazi's taking over the Netherlands, her family and another family hid in the apartment you see in the cover photo. Long story short, they were caught by the Germans, split up, and moved to the concentration camps. Unfortunately, the camp they moved to was an extermination camp, so the chance of survival was slim, only Frank's father survived the ordeal. Anne died a miserable death. 

Tickets to the House were hard to get. It needed to be booked one month in advance, which is why we drove to Amsterdam on August 18th. That was the earliest available ticket. We parked near a church. I was preoccupied about paying for parking, but the parking machine didn't work, so we assumed weekend parking was free. The 9a tour was packed. It took about 10 minutes for all of us to get in. One of the main rules of the tour was no flash photography. I was going to sneak some pictures, but chose not to. It cost about €34 to get in for a family of 4 which is cheap. The tour is worth it. You have an audio guide and each room you go into a sensor plays the next story. The best part of the tour is the room the Franks hid in. The original bookshelf was still there. It leads to a secret apartment with 3 levels. The rooms were so small and cramped. This is where Anne wrote most in her journal. Her family and another family hid in the rooms for 2 years before being discovered. Some interesting facts were that they couldn't turn on the water past 8 am because they felt the Nazi's would hear the sounds. They always had to be quiet or else they feared discovery. The final part of the museum was about Anne and her family's life in the concentration camp. It was so sad. 

There was one story I saw that Anne hadn't eaten in 3 days. One of her friends who was in a privileged area of the camp threw food over. Her friend heard Anne crying, someone stole Anne's food and didn't give her any. The other story was that Anne was suffering from typhoid and was shaking uncontrollable in her blanket full of lice. The conditions were so bad, there was no way she could survive.