An excerpt from a 50-year old Radio Netherlands Worldwide radio programme about Anne Frank can be heard via a new internet timeline about her life in hiding during World War II.
In the excerpt, Anne’s father talks about how the opening of a museum focussing on the diary of his late daughter was a very emotional, very important event to him. The Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam has created a visual and auditive timeline on the internet, which presents the story of Anne Frank - a young Jewish girl whose family had fled to the Netherlands from Germany during the early 1930s - against a backdrop of historic events, including - of course - World War II. (Story continues below)
Anne Frank's diary
During the Second World War, 13-year-old German-Jewish refugee Anne Frank and her family were forced to go into hiding. In her diary she wrote about daily life in the 'secret annexe', describing not only the fears and frustrations but the small pleasures as well. After two years in hiding, on 4 August 1944, the Frank family along with the others hiding in the annexe were betrayed, arrested and sent to concentration camps in eastern Europe. Father Otto was the only survivor and he later decided to publish his daughter's diary. The Secret Annexe appeared in Dutch in 1947 and the first US edition appeared in 1953 under the title Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. The book has since been translated into dozens of languages and reworked for both stage and screen. The house on Prinsengracht where the secret annexe was located was saved from demolition in the late 1950s. On 3 May 1960, Otto Frank opened the Anne Frank House Museum. The original diary went on display at the museum in 2010 to mark its 50th anniversary.
Radio Netherlands Worldwide
The museum’s timeline features special photographs, as well as audio and video clips, including an English-language excerpt from a RNW programme in which Otto Frank talks about what the Anne Frank House means to him. The programme was broadcast 50 years ago on 3 May 1960.
The timeline starts in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I and continues until the present day. It pays particular attention to the diary Anne kept while she was in hiding and to what is now the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam.
The Night of Broken Glass
The presentation of the new timeline coincides with the commemoration of Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass. Systematic persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany started with full force on the night of 9 November 1938. During that night and the following days the Nazis destroyed 175 synagogues and 7,000 Jewish-owned shops. Thousands of Jews were arrested, 91 were killed and hundreds injured.
Translations
The timeline will be published in Dutch and English initially, with translations in German, Spanish, French and Italian to follow later. The timeline is now available exclusively on the museum’s website. At some point in the future it will also be projected on a screen at the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam.
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