One of the first books I remember reading was the Diary of Anne Frank. I must have been 12 years old and it was easy for me to relate to the girl: in a very different way, I also felt misunderstood and didn't quite understand why the world had to turn the way it did. It was a discovery, the building up of an hero: also, the way to get me very interested in history. The whole WWII and Holocaust information came to me in a very different way after reading such book.
I daydreamed about going to the place where Anna had been hiding so many times... and then I forgot. To the point that I went three times to Amsterdam without including it in my day plans. Until one day I decided to get up early, make the trip and start the day with the line outside the very renovated house. It was not such a long wait until a thin rain. By the time I was out - around two hours later - the people waiting for an entrance will make a like almost a block long.
The site museum is very internationally oriented: you can read or hear the information in six or seven languages. It's always filled with people, so it's important that one has enough patience to go room to room without getting nervous from the extra noise. International students fill the place - not always happy with the choice that their teachers made.
What actually surprised me the most is that I always imagined that house even smaller. I know, is an awful place, but it looked like somewhere that you could actually survived on... I guess then it was fear what made it so oppressive and what is so clearly exposed in the book.
However, it also made me think about the person, the lady Anna Frank. She had a very cold view of everything that was happening and was very goal oriented: she understood Kitty (or the public) as somebody that must want to read or hear this. The diary - shown there - is written with such a clear hand writing, as a transparent desire of latter publication. One of the last areas of the visit shows an interview with Otto Frank, her father. He says how amazed he was when he learned all that she thought while in "captivity": "my only conclusion is that parents never get to know well their children".
All in all, it's a beautiful and comprehensive site museum, very much worth the visit and the not-so-cheap entrance.
Extra: Apart from the site museum, there are usually temporary exhibitions, including one related to "current issues". In September 2009, I saw an interactive project called "Free2Choose" about the possible limits to basic human rights in the contemporary world. Visitors were invited to see a video and then vote against or for certain limitations of freedom dictated by law in our world. It's a pity that is no longer there: it was quite fun.
Anne Frank Museum
Prinsengracht 267, Amsterdam.
Adult entrance price: 8,50€ (2010)
Opening hours - visit web page, they change through the year.
