Prinsengracht 263 – Part 4 The legacy

Throughout her diary, Anne had a conviction that when war was over, she would publish it and tell the world about life in an occupied Amsterdam. Beneath her words there was hope. But there is tragedy in her story, because she didn’t live to see that happen. She died from typhoid in Bergen-Belson in March 1945, just a few weeks before the camp was liberated by the British.

After reading them and learning her ambition, Otto Frank made the decision to take on his daughter’s mission and publish her diary. Later, The Anne Frank House Museum came to be born. The tour ended with an interactive display about prejudice and hatred in the world today. But I didn’t want to hear any more. It was too much. I needed to escape. I sat with a long, slow coffee in the café as I contemplated what I had experienced. I was angry with the girl in the queue. She had no concept of the significance of the empty room through a small hole. And she should! It’s important! I took another sip of coffee. Outside, on the canal edge, I sat for longer still, looking at the door to number 263. It was an ordinary-looking door, not at all conspicuous. But I suppose that was the point. Everything needed to be normal. The factory needed to run as it had always run with people coming and going as they went about their day-to-day lives.

Arriving at the airport check-in desk on my way home, I was confronted with having to part from my scooter so that it could be loaded onto the plane, while I waited for Wheelchair Assistance. I was plunged into the mechanics of the airport and found myself at the mercy of forces outside of my control. It frightened me. I wondered why? The forces that Anne had been at the mercy of were far more sinister. And yet she had retained her spirit and strength of character. It lives on through the museum and its work to promote tolerance and respect, both in The Netherlands and with partner organisations across the world. I had been physically and emotionally drained by my visit, but I had been humbled and inspired with passion. The world must not forget.

Prinsengracht 263 – Part 3 Leaving the secret annexe

We left the annexe by way of the rooftop terrace, the only bit of outside those in hiding had been able to have, and only when it was dark. We moved across to the new building next door.

It was a relief to be out. When we left, unlike Anne, we escaped the oppression. But the journey wasn’t over yet. There was a series of filmed accounts by Miep and school friends of Anne. And there was another, of Otto Frank, who had been the only survivor of the eight hidees. It was his request that the rooms remain as empty as when the Nazis had cleared them out with the family, as a symbol of the hole left by the massacre of millions of people. I thought of the ownerless shoes I had seen the day before. They had dangled like washing, on the street light cable across the street, silhouetted and abandoned against the clear sky. They took on a new meaning.

All who had known Anne spoke with deep emotion. Otto talked about how, after learning that his family had not survived, Miep had given him his daughter’s diaries, but that it had taken him a long while to open them. When he did, he had come to know a side of Anne’s personality that he had not known in life. She had opened up to her diary in a way she had not been able to with him. He wondered sadly if one can ever truly know their children. Hearing him speak, it brought back to me having seen him on “Blue Peter” in the 70s, when he had talked about Anne and their experiences of hiding. He had brought with him, the first of her many diaries, the famous red checked one. They were displayed, open, in the museum. Pages and pages of writing, containing two years in a silent, secret world.

 

Prinsengracht 263 – Part 2 Life in the secret annexe

 

Quotes from Anne’s diary took us from room to room. The words held an understated power. No-body spoke. Or if they did, it was a whisper. The pictures that she had pasted onto the walls looked as if they had been put up last week, so firmly were they stuck. Little bits of normality in the midst of terror outside. The windows were blacked out. On and on we went through the empty rooms.

The area was more spacious than I had imagined. I had somehow thought that in order to stay hidden, it must be small. But eight people had lived in it, unable to leave, go outside or even look out of the windows. Anne, her sister, Margot, and their parents, Otto and Edith Frank had entered the annexe on 9^th July 1942, followed by another couple they knew, Hermann and Auguste van Pels and their son, Peter. As the horror outside increased over the next few months, they made room for an eighth person.

They lived in fear of any sound they made reaching next door or downstairs. The warehouse workers had no idea of the secret they were hiding above. The only people who did, were the four people in the office: Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman, who were responsible for the business, and Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl in the office. It was imperative it stayed that way. Their survival depended on it.

The eight hidden people relied on Miep and the others to bring them food, as well as books, magazines and bleak news from outside. They were the only visitors. During the daytime they had to be silent. They could only flush the toilet, turn on the tap, or bathe when the factory, and those either side, was closed. Daytime occupations were limited. There’s not much you can do in silence. Anne wrote and wrote.

For two years they lived a secret life. Then in August 1944 they were betrayed.

Prinsengracht 263 – Part 1 Entering the secret annexe

I visited Anne Frank’s House in Amsterdam a couple of years ago. It was a powerful experience and afterwards I was moved to write about it. This year, my account of my visit and Anne Frank’s story was included as part of a display for Holocaust Day, 27^th January, when we remember those killed and the families affected by the Holocaust during World War 2. There was an exhibition in the Civic Centre (Council offices) in Southend on the day, and a smaller one in the main library during the last two weeks of January.

I would like to share the story with you over the next four weeks…

 

There was already a long queue outside Anne Frank’s House half-an-hour before it opened. Behind me was a young girl who spoke English with an American accent, but who claimed to be half Dutch, a quarter English and a quarter something else. She lived in Amsterdam and was with a man who I took to be her father, but maybe wasn’t because they talked about her dad. She was complaining that she had been there three times already and had only come because of him. “I don’t understand why everyone comes to see an empty room in a small hole. It’s boring.”

A man came from the museum and looked at my little mobility scooter. “Yes I know I can’t take it in,” I said. “But that’s ok; it can stay outside.” “We can put it somewhere safe, but can you manage stairs?” he asked. “Oh yes.” He looked doubtful. “There are a lot of them.” “I know.” He didn’t seem reassured but I was not going to be put off.

The first three floors, with steep and narrow stairs between them, were what had been the factory and its offices. The secret annexe was above them and at the back. By the time we arrived at the small room with the now famous bookcase, I was already worn out. Climbing through the hole hiding behind it took a huge amount of effort. It was half the size of a doorway, with a large step up and a low roof beam. As I hauled myself through, a shiver ran down my spine.

I was met with almost vertical steps, like a ladder, to the floor above the factory. As I pulled myself up them, I wondered how I was going to get down again, but I kept going. There was a one way system though the museum and once you start the journey, you can’t leave until the end. As I stepped into the annexe, secrecy closed in.