About a week after the official presentation of the new educational part of the museum I visited the remodelled Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. I have to admit I was quite sceptical going in. Having witnessed the construction of the modern building on an almost daily basis, I wondered whether the "new" Anne Frank House would maintain the authenticity I was so impressed with as a schoolgirl in the 1970s.

The answer is yes, yes and yes again! Not only has the House kept the emotional appeal I had felt as a child but the museum has actually been expanded upon to safeguard this authentic experience for generations of visitors to come. For this reason, the construction wasn't so much billed as a renovation, but can be better understood as an "authentic reconstruction."
9.000 people visited the House when it first opened its doors to the public in 1960. This number skyrocketed to a whopping 822.700 in 1998. "Still," the museum's curator Teresien da Silva explains, "the renovation wasn't intended to pack in more people, but rather to welcome them and tell the story in a better way."

"I thought it was amazing. It touched me in whole different light. I saw the holocaust museum in Washington DC, but this is better. It was interesting in what it stood for, because it allowed you to b educated beyond one person's experience."
A young American tourist.

A house with a story
The reconstruction has received considerable media attention in The Netherlands and beyond. And rightly so. The place where Anne, her family and four others hid from the German army has become a worldwide symbol of the fate of six million Jews that were killed in Nazi extermination camps during World War Two. Anne Frank HouseThrough her eloquent writing and keen observations, Anne has put a face on those somewhat anonymous multitudes.

Secret annex
Prior to the reconstruction, visitors were taken back in time to the Secret Annex, where Anne and the others lived in fear from June of 1942 until August of 1944. After a relatively short and somewhat disorienting visit, you'd find yourself outside the museum.

"It was very impressive. This is not even history, because it is still happening."
Swiss/Dutch woman & her two daughters

But this has all changed now. The modern building next to the original, which I had seen arise on my daily walks, houses a café, a bookstore, a multi-media presentation area and other museum facilities.
The reconstruction freed up space in the original Anne Frank building, so that the former offices of Anne's father Otto, at Prinsengracht 263, could be restored to the way things were during the occupation. "Visitors can now recognise the House from Anne's writings. They start in the old storage area, move through the offices and end up in the Secret Annex. It's a logical progression," Da Silva explains.

"It's very impressive. When you walk through the rooms where they lived….. Where they were forced to live.. We didn't experience the war, and sometimes it seems far away, but this really left an impression. Especially when you have children Anne's age…It just really hits home." A German couple.

Imagination
The house has not been refurbished, so a lot has been left up to the visitor's imagination. The original furniture was taken away shortly after the deportation of the Secret Annex's inhabitants in August 1944. Yet the stark realism doesn't fail to hit home. A tragedy occurred here, this is the place, a tragedy that touched the lives and times of millions. The Anne Frank House, and all that it stands for, is part of our legacy. However sad, it is an unmistakable part of the human condition.