Prinsengracht 263
Anneleis Marie Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1929, the second of two daughters born to Otto and Edith Frank. Life in post-World War I Germany was rough, not only because unemployment was high and poverty was severe, but also because Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party, seizing on the country’s growing anger, were gaining more and more supporters. His blaming of Jews for Germany’s ills struck a chord with the already rampant antisemitic sentiments infesting the country, and it wasn’t long before Anne’s parents began to fear the changing winds. Hoping to escape the rapidly intensifying persecution, Otto moved his family to Amsterdam in 1934, where he founded a company that traded in pectin, a gelling agent for making jam.
But the Nazi party’s hatred could not be confined within Germany’s borders. On 1 September 1939, the Nazis invaded of Poland. World War II had begun.
Slowly, Adolf Hitler’s war machine began making its way across Europe. On 10 May 1940, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. The Dutch army surrendered after only five days.. As they had done in other conquered lands, the Nazis began to introduce more and more laws and regulations that made the lives of Jews as difficult as possible. For instance, Jews could no longer visit parks, cinemas, or non-Jewish shops. Anne’s father lost his company, since Jews were no longer allowed to run their own businesses. All Jewish children, including Anne, had to go to separate Jewish schools.
Yet these injustices were only a taste of what was to come.
It wasn’t long before Jews, like their counterparts in other countries, had to start wearing a Star of David on their clothes, identifying themselves. Worse, however, was the rumor that all Jews would soon be forced to leave the Netherlands. When Margot, Anne’s sister, received a call-up to report for a so-called ‘labor camp’ in Germany on 5 July 1942, her parents were suspicious. Fearing the worst, they decided it was time to act on a plan Otto had already put into motion several months before.
In the spring of 1942, Anne’s father, with the help of several of his colleagues, had started furnishing a hiding place in the annex of his business premises at Prinsengracht 263. In July of that same year, the Franks moved into the annex. The Van Pels family, business associates of Otto, followed a week later. Eventually, they were joined by Fritz Pfeffer, another acquaintance of the Frank family.
For two years, assisted by outside help, the Frank family and their friends hid inside the Secret Annex. It was cramped and overcrowded, the atmosphere often tense. The threat of discovery was constant. Anne’s one escape was a diary, presented to her just before the family went into hiding, in which she wrote about her thoughts, feelings, and daily life inside the Annex.
Only nine months before the war’s end, in August 1944, the Frank family was discovered when police raided the house on Prisengracht. All those hiding inside were immediately sent to concentration camps. Otto Frank was the only member of the family to survive the war. And, although Anne’s diary had been miraculously preserved and would soon become the definitive account of Jewish life during Nazi occupation, the Secret Annex and all of its memories soon fell into disrepair.
In 1950, the Berghaus textile factory wanted to buy the houses on the corner of the Prinsengracht and the Westermarkt, including Prinsengracht 263, in hopes of demolishing them for the construction of a new factory building. Although the building contained only ghosts and pain, Otto still struggled when the demolition was announced. It felt wrong to see it razed to the ground. Lacking funds for proper restoration work, however, Otto reluctantly sold the building to Berghaus in 1954.
But Anne’s legacy would not be silenced.
Inspired by the young girl’s words, a committee of prominent Amsterdam citizens took the initiative to save the building from demolition and, in 1957, the Berghaus company abandoned its plans for a new factory building, instead donating the former hiding place at Prinsengracht 263 to the Anne Frank House Organization. Eventually, the Secret Annex was restored to its World War II appearance and opened to the public as a museum on this day in 1960. To this day, it remains one of Amsterdam’s biggest draws, attracting 1.2 million visitors every year.
