Anne Frank -- Her Life in Letters

Amsterdam Historical Museum, April 12 -- September 3, 2006


AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, March 23, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- Anne Frank - her life in letters is about Anne Frank as a correspondent. We know that Anne Frank wrote her diary in the form of letters. Less well known is that, prior to the diary, she often wrote postcards and letters to family and friends. Some twenty of these letters have recently been made available to the Anne Frank House by Anne's cousin Buddy Elias and the Anne Frank-Fund in Basle specially for this exhibition. This is the first time that the original letters will be shown to the public. Like her diary letters, Anne's childhood correspondence tells the tale of a girl who - against the backdrop of a wartime city - grew from a letter-writer in the Rivierenbuurt, a district in south Amsterdam, into a world-famous author.

To Amsterdam

1933 -- 1942: Merwedeplein

The Frank family left Frankfurt on Main for Amsterdam in 1933 as refugees. The family rented a house at Merwedeplein 37 in the Rivierenbuurt, a new development area of Amsterdam where many German Jews lived. Anne and Margot Frank became integrated quickly in their new country at school and on the street they soon learned the Dutch language and way of life. In her correspondence she writes about her school, hobbies, holidays and family. Later on she also writes about the persecution of the Jews.

1942 -- 1944: Prinsengracht

On June 12, 1942 - her thirteenth birthday - Anne Frank was given a diary. It became her great comfort and support in the claustrophobic atmosphere of the family's hiding place on the Prinsengracht where she lived from July 1942 onwards. In her isolated situation Anne created a world of her own through the letters in her diary. On March 16, 1944 she wrote, "The nicest part is being able to write down all my thoughts and feelings; otherwise I'd absolutely suffocate". Anne's development as a writer received a stimulus in 1944 when cabinet minister Bolkestein called on the Dutch on Radio Oranje to record their wartime experiences; She decided to rewrite her diary with a view to publication. The result was a second version of the diary.

The exhibition

Anne Frank -- her life in letters starts with a set showing the Merwedeplein with the skyscraper at the end, a familiar sight for Amsterdam residents. Visitors will make the acquaintance of a still carefree Anne Frank who attends school and plays with her girl friends. On the way to the skyscraper the space becomes visibly narrower. We see how Anne, her family and other Jews become increasingly isolated from Amsterdam society. We read about anti-Semitic regulations and the threat of deportations. Photographs, documents and objects illustrate the atmosphere of a city in wartime. Survivors and other witnesses tell of their experiences at the time and their memories of Anne Frank. An impression of Anne's room and a multi-media presentation of extracts from the diary, for example, depict her period in hiding. Visitors can leaf digitally through the two versions of the diary and compare them. Life-size photographs of roundups and deportations give a picture of what was going on in Amsterdam in the outside world at this time.

Anne's letter to her father

Special attention will be paid to a letter Anne wrote to her father on May 5, 1944. It is a revised version of a letter she had recently written in her diary. In it she declares that she regards herself as being adult and independent. Despite his promise to destroy the letter, Otto Frank continued to keep it. In this revised letter we see how Anne's personal evolution into a young adult and her growth as a writer coincided.

Anne Frank -- her life in letters is a joint production with the Anne Frank House, Amsterdam.

Location: Amsterdam Historical Museum Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 357 / Kalverstraat 92

For more information on Holland, see www.holland.com



            

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