Saturday, July 10, 2004

267 Prinsengracht, Amsterdam



Anyone who visits Amsterdam should see the Anne Frank house and museum. I read her diary many times over the years without comprehension of what it must have been like for a young girl to be locked away in hiding for two years at such an impressionable age. Her written words brought the horror of the halocaust to your doorstep. By visiting the house that was her prison her written words come alive.



As you wind your way up the narrow stairways and through the empty wood-floored rooms, peeking out windows to the sidewalk and canal below, you eerily feel what it must have been like for the families who lived in hiding for so many months. You'll pass through the famous bookcase and enter the "private", cramped rooms of the family; the bathrooms, the kitchen, and finally the room where Anne pasted photos to the walls and created a life for herself. The photos are still pasted to those walls and remnants of the old wall paper is still attached in places. The museum is very well set up with video screens telling the story as you pass through the halls and rooms. Remnants of the day are in glass cases.



I left the house with tears streaming down my face.

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