Anne Frank House, Amsterdam, Netherlands. By John Bermont.

INTRODUCTION

The Anne Frank Huis is a museum dedicated to Anne Frank, her family, and extended family. Anne was a German Jew. Her father, Otto Frank, moved the family from Frankfurt, Germany to escape persecution at the hands of Hitler's Nazis during the 1930s. He re-established his business in Amsterdam.

The German army invaded Holland in May 1940 and had the whole country in their grip within five days. The German Nazis then began imposing restrictions on Jews in that country, the very thing that Otto Frank had fled from in his native Germany. Two years later the family moved out of their home and slipped into hiding in the annex of her father's warehouse in Amsterdam. This is the "Anne Frank Huis." They stayed there until they were discovered and subsequently arrested in August 1944.

Anne, then 16, and most of her family were deported to Auschwitz prison, a Nazi concentration camp near Krakow, Poland. She died in another prison camp in early 1945 just weeks before liberation. Of her family, only her father survived these murder factories. He returned to Amsterdam after the war and was given his daughter's diary which had survived and was found in the secret apartment. Otto had the diary published under the Dutch title Het Achterhuis. The English translation was published under the title Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. It has become one of the best selling books of all time.

The Anne Frank Huis receives nearly a million visitors a year. The waiting line can be very long. I was there several times, from Christmas to August. It's always the same — a line wrapped around the corner for as far as the eye can see. It is advised to reserve a time slot so you don't waste your precious Amsterdam hours standing in place.

Anne Frank Huis
Location:	Prinsengracht 263, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Telephone:	+31 (0)20 556.7100
Hours:	November 1 through March 31 Daily 9:00 am - 7:00 pm, Saturdays till 9:00 pm. April 1 through October 31 Daily 9:00 am - 9:00 pm, Saturdays till 10:00 pm. July and August daily till 10:00 pm. Limited hours on Dutch holidays.
Closed:	Yom Kippur. October 12, 2016
Cost:	Adults: €9.00 Teens 10-17: €4.50 With European Youth Card: €4.50 Children free
Disabled:	No provisions.
Trams:	From Centraal Station lines 13 or 17 to Westermarkt stop. Walk one block north along the canal Prinsengracht.
Regulations:	No smoking. No cell phones. No photography. No video cameras. Small hand carried bags only.
Facilities:	Cafe Museum store
Web Site:	Anne Frank Huis

Source: Information has been extracted from the Anne Frank Huis official web site April 2014.

MORE MUSEUMS

For similar information on other museums in Europe see the directory at Major European Museums: Travelers Portfolio™. This is a work in process.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

These pages provide additional basic information about the Netherlands, a.k.a. Holland.

The Netherlands: Prime Travel Data.

Prime Travel Data: Elementary Travel Information for Europe.

Enjoy-Europe.com: Home page.

Recommended books for further information:

The links below take you directly to a page at Amazon.com with details about the book. In many cases the Amazon.com listing includes readers' comments and sample pages from the book. You then have the opportunity to add the book to your shopping cart and buy it. I buy virtualy all of my books at Amazon.com and have had excellent service for years.

By Anne Frank

The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank, translated by B.M. Mooyaart-Doubleday.

The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition, by Anne Frank, translated by Arnold J. Pomeras and B.M. Mooyaart-Doubleday. Prepared by the Netherlands State Instute for War Documentation.

About Anne Frank

The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank by Willy Lindwer.

Anne Frank: The Biography by Melissa Müller, translated by Rita and Robert Kimber.

About Anne Frank for teenagers

Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary: A Photographic Rememberance by Ruud van der Rol and Riam Verhoeven.

Anne Frank, by Rachel Epstein.

Anne Frank, by Sandor Katz.

Anne Frank - The Whole Story directed by Robert Dornhelm.

DVDs

Anne Frank Remembered directed by Jon Blair.

Additional Reading on the Nazi Occupation of The Netherlands

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom.
This is an account of a little known Christian family in Haarlem, about 10 miles from Amsterdam. Corrie ten Boom, her father, and her family made their home central headquarters for rescuing Jews and sending them to safety during the Nazi occupation of Holland in WWII. They didn't need to do it but they put themselves in harm's way and suffered horribly for it. This woman is a saint. I lived a short distance from the Ten Boom clock shop in the mid 1970s. Her home is now a mini museum with free entry. I visited in 2015. The "hiding place" is amazing.
My landlord, Mr. Breeman, was also part of the Dutch Underground and saved many American and British airmen. He told me about two American pilots who he had harbored for several weeks, to the point of cabin fever. So he took them out to dinner one night, whereupon the group had a close encounter with German soldiers in a restaurant. They were lucky that the Germans did not see the Americans holding their forks in their right hands. Europeans keep their forks in their left hands.

Insight and Amusement

The Undutchables: An Observation of the Netherlands, Its Culture And Its Inhabitants

Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused

Note: "The Netherlands" and "Holland" are used interchangeably, though actually Holland is the name of the two major provinces, Noord Holland and Zuid Holland. For all practical purposes, either name is OK. The people are "Nederlanders," "Hollanders," or "Dutch." Some of them like to call themselves a "Kaaskop", "cheese head," but that is not very complimentary so hold back on using that word. I call them "Dutchies" and they don't seem to mind. "Yanks" is their name for Americans.