I went to the Anne Frank house when I was in Amsterdam because we have been studying WW2. Anne Frank was a teenage Jewish girl who escaped from Germany and fled to Amsterdam and hid from the Nazi German party when they invaded the Netherlands in 1940.
When we went to the Anne Frank house, I was shocked at how small it was. It was very small and a lot of people were hiding in the house. I felt really sad for Anne and her family and the other Jews who had to hide there. They had to be quiet, now make any sound, stay in dark rooms and could never go outside. It really impacted me. Some of the things that impacted me the most were the size of the annex, the stories I learned about the concentration camps, and how horrible life was if you were a Jew hiding from Nazis in those times.
Anne Frank
The annex. The annex is located on a busy street in central Amsterdam next to a canal called Prinsengracht. We stayed at an Airbnb on Prinsengracht just down the street from Anne Frank’s house. We even walked to the house from where we were staying. The house was turned into a museum after WW2. During the war, Anne and her family and four other friends hid in this house, which was called the Secret Annex. They were in hiding there for two years. While she was in hiding in the Secret Annex, she kept a diary that she wrote in regularly. She dreamed of being a famous writer. When the Nazis raided the annex, they found the family and her diary and threw her diary on the floor. A family friend found it and brought it back to her father. Her father made her dream come true after her death by publishing the diary and it has been read by many people all over the world. The annex was very, very small. Anne and her sister, Margot, shared a room. The room was so small that I could stand in the middle of it, put my arms out and I could touch both walls. Anne and her family were captured and taken to a concentration camp.
The actual Diary of Anne Frank
The concentration camp. After two years and one month in hiding at the Secret Annex, the Nazis came and raided the place. They were all arrested and taken to concentration camps. Her father, Otto Frank, was separated from Anne, Margot and their mother. Out of everyone who was taken from the Secret Annex, Anne’s father was the only survivor. I learned a lot of horrifying stories about what life was like at the concentration camps. The camp Anne went to was Bergen-Belsen. There, she was treated horribly and went hungry and begged for food. Eventually, she and her sister died of typhus.
Yellow Star, required to be worn by Jews
The Nazis. On May 10th, 1940 the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. Jews now had to follow strict rules like wearing a yellow star on their clothes to signify that they were Jewish and they would not have the same rights as the Germans. Anne went into hiding no July 5th, 1942. She was only 13 years old at that time.
The Secret Annex, or Anne Frank House, really left an impression me. I think about how sad it was and how poor their living conditions were and how unfair life was in WW2 for Germans.
