In 1942, a 13-year-old Anne Frank and her family entered a cramped space in the rear of an office building in Amsterdam. It was to be their home for the next few years as they hid from Nazi persecution. While there, Frank began a diary in which she avidly documented life in the Achterhuis, or Secret Annex—its rhythms and tensions, but also her dreams and passions that reached far beyond her confined circumstances. “I see the eight of us in the Annex,” she reflected, “as if we were a patch of blue sky surrounded by menacing black clouds.”
Today, the Annex that harbored the Frank clan and four other Jews, including the Van Pels family, during World War II is preserved by the Anne Frank House. But for the first time, the nonprofit organization is bringing a full-scale replica of the hidden space outside of the Netherlands, as part of its remit to foster global understanding of the Holocaust.
The bookcase that hid the entrance of the Secret Annex, in the Anne Frank House. Photo: Cris Toala Olivares / © Anne Frank House.
The installation anchors “Anne Frank The Exhibition,” which opens today at the Center for Jewish History in New York. In it, visitors will be immersed in a faithful reproduction of the cloistered room, complete with artifacts and faded furnishings—from the movie star clippings Anne tacked to her wall to the pet carrier that housed the Van Pels’s cat.
2020 reconstruction of the Anne Frank room in the Secret Annex. Photo courtesy of the Anne Frank House.
“Through this exhibition, the Anne Frank House offers insights into how this could have happened and what it means for us today,” said Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House, in a statement. “The exhibition provides perspectives, geared toward younger generations, that are certain to deepen our collective understanding of Anne Frank and hopefully provide a better understanding of ourselves.”
Accompanying the recreated Annex are galleries that unfold the story of the Frank family through animation, photographs, videos, and more than 100 artifacts from the Anne Frank House’s collection, some traveling to the U.S. for the first time. Included here are Frank’s first photo album and handwritten verses, the family’s Torah, furniture, and surviving letters. Coloring in the political climate are images and films that detail the Nazi occupation.
Anne Frank’s poetry album. Photo: Ray van der Bas. © Anne Frank House.
The show doesn’t flinch in recounting Anne Frank’s fate. The Annex occupants were arrested in August 1944 and forcibly deported to concentration camps. Frank died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Her father, Otto, was the only family member to survive the Holocaust and worked to publish his daughter’s diary—a journey chronicled in the exhibition.
Today, The Diary of a Young Girl (also known as The Diary of Anne Frank), first published in 1947, is available in more than 75 languages and remains a searing document of the horrors of the Holocaust, as experienced by a teenager with an unflagging spirit. A replica of the original journal is featured in the Annex installation.
Installation view of “Anne Frank The Exhibition” at the Center for Jewish History in New York. Photo: Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images.
The exhibition arrives at a time when Holocaust misrepresentation and distortion—and outright denial—remains shockingly widespread.
In a first-of-its-kind survey, the Claims Conference, a nonprofit that supports Holocaust survivors, laid bare startling gaps in knowledge about the Nazi genocide across eight countries. While most respondents reflected a concern that the Holocaust could happen again, the Eight-Country Index of Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness found that some were unaware of basic facts about the atrocities.
One in five French adults had not heard or weren’t sure that they had heard about the Holocaust prior to the survey, while 48 percent of American respondents could not name a single concentration camp. In Romania, 53 percent of participants believe that the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust—6 million, including 1.5 million children—is “greatly exaggerated.” American and Hungarian respondents were also more likely to report that Holocaust denial is common in their countries.
Photos of Anne Frank’s kindergarten class (in the bottom image, she is pictured in the back row center in a white dress). Photo: Ray van der Bas / © Anne Frank House
“The alarming gaps in knowledge, particularly among younger generations, highlight an urgent need for more effective Holocaust education,” said Gideon Taylor, Claims Conference president, in a statement. The majority of the survey’s participants are on his side: 93 percent of them stress the continued importance of teaching the Holocaust.
Such is the goal of “Anne Frank The Exhibition,” as Leopold, in his statement, noted “an obligation to help world audiences understand the historical roots and evolution of antisemitism, including how it fueled Nazi ideology that led to the Holocaust.” According to press materials, the show has already sold tens of thousands of tickets ahead of its limited run and aims to reach 250,000 students through its partnerships with hundreds of school districts.
2020 reconstruction of the Van Pels room in the Secret Annex. Photo courtesy of the Anne Frank House.
On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, said Gavriel Rosenfeld, president of the Center for Jewish History, “Anne Frank’s story becomes more urgent than ever. In a time of rising antisemitism, her diary serves as both a warning and a call to action, reminding us of the devastating impact of hatred. This exhibition challenges us to confront these dangers head-on and honor the memory of those lost in the Holocaust.”
“Anne Frank The Exhibition” is on view at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, through April 30.
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
