One site I was truly excited to visit was the Anne Frank house. I read The Diary of Anne Frank back in seventh grade, and I welcomed the opportunity to visit the house in person. The house has a few rather steep staircases, and you are given an audio tour player as you enter. The upper levels where the Franks and the others lived are narrow with a one-way traffic flow, so be prepared to not move at your own pace if you want to view and read about the artifacts in each room.
What struck me was just how small and cramped the rooms actually are. You can start to understand the desperation and urgency of families who went into hiding to avoid certain death at the hands of the Nazis. The rooms also follow a chronological order: the first rooms talk about the start of the war and the plans Otto and Edith Frank made. As you wind through the rooms and floors, you progress through the years of the war and finally end in a room about the concentration camps the hiders were sent to. It’s a strangely emotional place that contrasts the first-hand account of a teenage girl against the backdrop of one of the greatest atrocities committed in the world.
No photos are allowed inside.
