‘So I’m now fifteen’

The new exhibition in the Anne Frank House, ‘So I’m now fifteen’ – Photos, letters and books of Anne Frank, was opened today. The exhibition focuses on the short life of Anne Frank (1929-1945), and features one or more photos, letters and books from each year of her life. Some have only recently been acquired by the museum, and are being shown in public for the first time. Hanneli Pick-Goslar, a Holocaust survivor and friend of Anne Frank, opened the exhibition, and spoke of her friendship with Anne Frank and their final meeting in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The exhibition can be seen in the Anne Frank House until October 2013.

Exhibition

Photos in the exhibition show a vivacious and curious girl who at first lives a normal life: Anne on her father’s lap, at the beach with her sister Margot, with friends at an ice rink, with classmates at the Montessori school. But the German occupation of Holland and anti-Jewish measures change her life drastically. The Frank family has to go into hiding, and Anne is forced to grow up quickly. In one of the letters in the exhibition, to her father, Anne writes: “You can and may regard me as fourteen, but with all the trouble I’ve become older.” In hiding in the ‘Secret Annexe’, Anne develops into a talented writer. On 13 June 1944 she writes in her diary: “Another birthday has gone by, so I’m now fifteen.” Shortly afterwards Anne, her family and the four other people in hiding with them are betrayed and arrested by the Nazis.

Filmed impression of the exhibition on YouTube

New acquisitions

The exhibition includes a number of new acquisitions. There is a tea set, for example, and  the book 'Dutch Sagas and Myths', in which Anne wrote 'a memento of Anne Frank', given by Anne to her friend Toosje Kupers just before she went into hiding. The book ‘Basic Principles of Botany’ is also on display. Anne was given the book by her parents for her fifteenth, and last, birthday. On the flyleaf she wrote her name, the date, and ‘the Secret Annexe’.

Anne's tenth birthday. Anne is the second from the left, Hanneli Goslar is the fourth girl from the left. (© AFS/AFF)

Hanneli Goslar

One of the photos in the exhibition shows Anne on her tenth birthday, arm in arm with Hanneli Goslar and other young friends on the Merwedeplein square. Hanneli, now 83 years old, talked of her friendship with Anne at the opening, as she also does in a film on show in the exhibition. The two friends first met at nursery school, and spoke to each other for the last time in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Anne died in Bergen-Belsen in March 1945. She was fifteen years old.

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