The Anne Frank House


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July 3rd 2007
Published: July 3rd 2007
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Spent the day making the most of our new-found metro tram navigation skills and went back and forth all over the place.

This included our return to the Anne Frank house, where a crowd of people still stood around the corner waiting to get in while we walked to the front of the line, showed our pre-paid tickets and walked right in. I have no idea why people haven't picked up on securing reservations. But my thanks to all of you who stood there so I could sneak past.

And what to say about Anne Frank Huis?

There's a theory ... a plaudit ... a something ... in playwriting that suggests that the more specific something is in story telling, the more universal it becomes.

And that's the thing that hits us about Anne Frank. It makes my heart heavy to think how many other voices were silenced without the opportunity to remind us of their place in the world. Primo Levy suggests if they'd all had the opportunity, the magnitude of it would make it impossible to survive the knowledge.

But the life of one girl so beautifully and tragically chronicled gives voice to every other silent story. And in some way, it puts us in the room there with her and the seven other hide aways.

I was standing and looking around what was Anne's room before I even realized where I was. My head was still wrapping itself around stepping through the bookcase that hid the entry to the hideaway and inching my way up the narrow stairs where they would have been brought out after they were discovered.

No one knows who betrayed the Franks and their friends. Anne and her sister Margot died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen only a couple of weeks before the British liberated the camp. Of the roughly 110,000 jews deported from The Netherlands, it's estimated that only 5,000 of them lived. Otto Frank, Anne's father, was one of them ... and the only person of the eight in hiding who survived.

And no matter how long you stood on the uneven, uncomfortable, cobble-stone sidewalk, there's no way to prepare yourself for that. But who in the world, aside from a lone 15-year-old Dutch girl, possibly could?

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5th July 2007

I just love seeing the world through your eyes. This particular entry was especially moving. Thanks for sharing, sweetie.
5th July 2007

Anne Frank Hiezzy
Is this Paul Frank's sister? Sorry had to make a joke...this entry reminded me of the time I visited this house. Heavy experience to say the least. Thought that the "It all keeps going" entry was beautiful, and so true. Keep up the blog...I like traveling with your POV.

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