The Hindu Business Line : Big little hiding place

World War II and Anne Frank are for many, the world over, synonymous. Anne Frank’s diary today remains, perhaps, the most compelling documentation of life under siege. Born in Germany, Anne’s family fled to Amsterdam when Hitler came to power in Germany. Their Amsterdam house has the now famous secret annex where the family hid for two long years before being betrayed.

No one knows the identity of the anonymous caller who informed the German security police that there were Jews hiding at 263 Prinsengracht.

Today the place has turned into a pilgrim spot for many. Open to the public since 1960, the Anne Frank House has been converted into a museum that preserves the hiding place and also seeks to create awareness about anti-Semitism and discrimination through exhibitions and travelling festivals.

House of hope

The canal side street, where the house stands, is narrow but busy with unending lines of people waiting to get in; the open exhibition area is a few metres away and there are, of course, plenty of food carts doing brisk business.

It’s difficult to even think that the dark spectre of World War II had ever touched this sun warmed street and forced families to flee or hide. It is even harder to imagine a 15-year-old, confined to a small space in overwhelming times, still retained the sensibility to write and, more importantly, believe that the world was essentially a nice place to be in.

Admission prices at €7.50 may seem steep, especially for families. Comprising two sections, visitors enter through the front part and go to the back, also known as the annex.

The sun is suddenly cut off as the ticket lady punches the entry pass and you walk into the entry hall. For the briefest second you miss the sun, the light and the noise. The senses take a while to get used to the telling silence — even the smallest child is quiet.

The short gallery leads to two miniature displays of the annex. This is a wonderful bird’s eye view of the entire space occupied by the eight people for over 700 days. Everything like towels and kitchen pots and the layout of the rooms are carefully recreated. The compelling details make it easy to expect the cleverly used shadows to become people quietly moving about.

Otto Frank’s warehouse ran the length of the building extending under the annex. It was on the upper floors of the annex that the Frank family comprising Otto and Edith Frank, their daughters Margot and Anne, and the Van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer stayed when German Nazis occupied the Netherlands and the persecution of Jews got under way.

Dark times

Steep stairs lead to the now famous bookcase, which shut to hide the families. Through the translucent glass in the right-hand corner of the floor can be seen the descending staircase used by their friends to bring them essential supplies. The rooms are bereft of furniture.

The police had removed everything after the arrests. But the walls tell their own tale, for Anne had decorated them with her “film star” collection that Otto hadn’t forgotten when they went into hiding. Identifying any of the stars is near impossible now. Somehow the toilet area… the washbasin, the porcelain lavatory with its delicate blue etchings… evokes strong emotions and a sense of living intimacy after the gripping emptiness of the other rooms. Close your eyes and, perhaps, you could hear “Shh…Father. Be quiet. Otto, you can’t run the water anymore..” (Tales From The Secret Annex)

Hope ever

There are no curtains on the windows now. But the daylight that creeps in isn’t strong. Lines from Anne’s diary are transcribed on the walls. The soft lighting highlights the optimism contained in them.

After a while in the annex you are glad they are there. They are essential to survive in the darkness that engulfs once the bookcase closes.

A page from Anne Frank's diary. COURTESY: ANNE FRANK HUIS, AMSTERDAM

Anne’s original first diary, a red bound volume, is on display with the others she used. The pages still hold together; the ink has faded and the words are closely spaced — paper was scarce but hope wasn’t. Anne dreamt of growing up to be a journalist and publishing her diaries as a novel titled “The Secret Annex”. It’s perhaps as we see her handwritten words that our intense empathy with this 15-year-old becomes clearer to ourselves.

Anne disliked staying hid but never did she think that she wouldn’t be a part of her envisaged world order where one could and want to be a Jew. Anne died a few days after her sister Margot in March 1945 in Berg-Belsen.

No Europe tour is ever truly complete without standing at least an hour in line to enter the Anne Frank house and discussing the war era with other patient waiters. Strangely, the interminable wait doesn’t make people irritable.

Different nationalities, different people — a mini map of the world winds its way to the house of the Holocaust’s most famous victim, who left us an unforgettable legacy of hope for a world where one day when “this terrible war will be over …when we’ll be people again and not just Jews!”