Anne Frank's House

While choosing books I am not really particular on types of them, I try to get a taster session on most of the types. And there are many I have left at many stages of the book and never regretted much on that. I have tried reading Anne Frank’s diary years back and I left it somewhere in the middle as it didn’t keep me well engaged at that time. May be the reason is there were some clashing priorities or had to return the book to my friend whom I had borrowed it from. I clearly remember this one was on high demand and was on a circulation list. However, the bottom line is I didn’t get a chance to do it.

On our recent trip to Amsterdam, we visited Anne Frank’s House which is now one of the most popular and top tourist attractions in Europe. It is done quite well!!! It does evoke some feelings of depression to you. When you are on your city breaks especially with the complete mind set of a tourist, this is something highly unlikely to happen to you; at least to us. Usually on trips, especially on city breaks and the likes you would be quite enthusiastic and would be in a run to experience the most you can from the new place. Especially with a city like Amsterdam where you have the floating flower markets, lovely canals and amazing night life with the red light district and the likes very little do you expect to experience something of a sad bit. However, we had decided to visit Anne Frank’s Museum after the Van Gogh and Rijks Museum. SreeRaj bought entry tickets to Anne Frank’s Museum online and I was just oki about it. Give me the choice of a scenic country side, a new city centre shopping, nice garden and a museum, the last one would be of my least preference. Well, Anne Frank’s house is one of the unique experiences I would say; quite touching. And now I badly wanted to go back to the book and start all over again.

Anne Frank’s House is a well kept museum now. The same place where the group hid from the Germans has been preserved along with some of the original sheets from Anne’s diary. It is one of the typical Dutch styles of houses where you have steep stairs with relatively higher number of steps…oh, it is really unique and takes a bit of time to get used to it. However, we managed to visit all floors of the house. They have managed to take you through all stages of her diary through the different floors like someone is narrating the whole episode for you. They have done videos, pictures and in fact quoted some of the catching lines on the walls. You get to see the rooms, the amenities they had (though not great a thing to see) and in fact you can really put those words into pictures there as if things are happening right in front of you. No one needs to sit and rewind the mental time machines there; it is just like a live scenario put in front of you. It takes you through whole of their hiding time through to the betrayal and their arrest from the bottom to the top floor of the building. Finally, the building talks about the concentration camps and the death of the family including Anne due to typhus. The last part is about a video on Otto Frank, Anne’s father who survived the period.

We spent around two hours in the Museum and this was done on our last night in Amsterdam. It was a little depressing, but it was one of those unique Museums and I would surely recommend this as a place worth visiting. Well, it is commercialised too! You can buy Anne Frank’s diary in all the languages it has been translated to, souvenirs, post cards, video messages and so on. This one is on my next to-read list! Right now what keeps me awake in trains is the ‘Clear Light of day’ by Anita Desai taking you through the Old and New Delhi, Indian traditional families, its beauty and hardness. Will write more once it is over.