If you want to visit the Anne Frank House, you'll need to purchase timed tickets in advance. Tickets go on sale at midnight on the first Tuesday the month prior. Keep in mind the time difference. I went online at 3 pm on Monday (California is 9 hours behind Amsterdam) and was able to get tickets (€14).
In front of the Westerkerk (Western Church) is a statue of Anne Frank. This church is just a block from the Anne Frank House and the church bells were what Anne heard every day.
The entrance to the Anne Frank House is through a modern building.
We booked the Introductory Program for an additional €7. The educator tells the history of Anne Frank in the context of WWII and the persecution of the Jews. The program lasts 30 minutes then you walk through the house. If you read The Diary of a Young Girl, you can probably skip the program.
Replicas of the table where Anne wrote her diary and her bicycle.
A replica of her diary. The real one is in the museum and you will get to see it.
The star Anne was required to wear because she was Jewish.
The room where the program was held has a view of the Secret Annex where Anne, her parents Otto & Edith, her sister Margot, Mr. & Mrs. Van Pel and their son Peter (they were the Van Daans in her diary) and Fritz Pfeffer (Mr. Dussel in the diary) hid for 25 months.
Photos are not allowed inside the Secret Annex. An included audioguide explains the rooms, which are virtually untouched. Their furniture was ransacked during the arrest on August 4, 1944 so the rooms are bare. At the end of the tour, you'll see several films, including one with Otto Frank. He was the only one who survived. Anne & Margot died of Typhus in a concentration camp in March 1945 while the others were gassed or died of disease. Over 100,000 of the 140,000 Jews in the Netherlands died during the war years.
You exit through the front door of Opekta, Mr. Frank's spice & pectin business. When I visited 30 years ago, the modern building was not there and I entered through these doors to visit the Secret Annex.
2022 07 15
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