Record number of visitors

In 2011, The Anne Frank House attracted 1,104,233 visitors, 50,000 more than the previous record of 2010 (1,050,339 visitors). The museum welcomed its millionth visitor, 19 year-old Tanja Trawniczek from Vienna, Austria, on 14 November 2011. The majority of visitors hail from outside the Netherlands (85%) and is under the age of 30.

The large number of visitors is partly the result of the museum’s long opening hours and the possibility to buy entrance tickets online. In 2012 the museum will again be open from 9 AM to 9 PM (10 PM on Saturdays) from 15 March to 15 September, and from 9 AM to 10 PM every day in July and August. Increasing numbers of people are buying their entrance tickets online.

Many visitors visit the Anne Frank House during vacation periods often resulting in queues. Recently visitors with a smartphone can prepare themselves for their visit to the museum: the Anne Frank House is providing visitors waiting in the queue with free WiFi access to its website http://m.annefrank.org/.This is particularly popular with foreign visitors.

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Eva awarded

Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss-Geiringer, Otto Frank's stepdaughter, has been awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by Her Majesty The Queen in the New Year's Honours for her services to Holocaust education and the Anne Frank Trust UK.    

Eva Schloss is one of the co-founders of the Anne Frank Trust UK and since 1990 has been a trustee of the charity. Eva has worked tirelessly since the publication of her first book Eva’s Story in 1988 to teach the lessons of the Holocaust to countless people, in the UK and around the world. She has also been recognised with two honorary doctorates from universities. Each time she tells her story she adds a new insight or perspective. 

Eva was born in Vienna, Austria in 1929. With her parents Erich and Fritzi and brother Heinz she fled from the Nazis to the Netherlands in 1938. The Geiringer family settled in Amsterdam and lived on the Merwedeplein 46, opposite the Frank family. Heinz Geiringer, like Margot Frank, received a summons in July 1942 to report for transport to a "labour camp" in Germany. The next day the family went into hiding. They were betrayed in May 1944 and sent to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Erich died on a death march, Heinz died in Mauthausen concentration camp. Fritzi and Eva were liberated in Auschwitz. They returned to Amsterdam in June 1945, in the same transport as Otto Frank, who had lost his wife Edith and daughters Margot and Anne. In 1953 Otto and Fritzi got married and settled in Basel, Switzerland. Eva moved to London in the early 1950s and married Zvi Schloss. They have three children and five grandchildren.

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New Exhibition

The Anne Frank Zentrum and Anne Frank House are pleased to present the German version of a new travelling exhibition Yours, Anne - A Girl Makes History. Today’s opening takes place in the Bundestag in the presence of Kristina Schröder, German minister of Youth and Family Affairs; Wolfgang Thierse, deputy speaker of the German Parliament; Jacqueline Sanders-van Maarsen, a childhood friend of Anne Frank and Albert de Mezquita, a classmate of Anne Frank. Also attending are more than one hundred young people participating in an international conference on remembrance. This conference – in the Dutch embassy in Berlin – begins this afternoon with an opening address by Wim Kok, chair of the Board of Trustees of the Anne Frank House. 

The exhibition portrays Anne Frank’s life story. Most of the images are from the Frank family’s photo albums. Chronological chapters connect the story of the Frank family to the 'bigger history': the rise of the Nazis and the Holocaust. The heart of the exhibition is the ‘Gedankenraum’ – a spatial impression of the Secret Annexe in Amsterdam where the Frank family spent more than two years in hiding. In this ‘Space to Reflect’, visitors can hear excerpts from Anne Frank’s diary.

Current Events Modules

The exhibition concludes with a number of multimedia modules that illustrate the present-day relevance of this historical period using four themes: identity, group thinking, discrimination and commitment.

Guided Tours by Young People

After the debut in the Bundestag, the exhibition will tour Germany in the coming years. Young people serve as the guides at each location. In a two-day training, these youngsters learn about the exhibition’s content and background, the best way to present the information to their peers and how to make contemporary issues discussable.

Cooperation

The Anne Frank Zentrum in Berlin and Anne Frank House in Amsterdam created this exhibition in cooperation with the Dutch design firm Tinker Imagineers in Utrecht. Germany’s Federal Ministry of Youth and Family Affairs and the Aktion Mensch Fund provided the financial support for this project.

Youth Conference

Directly after the opening of this new exhibition, a three-day conference on remembrance commences with over one hundred young people, teachers and historians participating from twenty countries. They will address the question of how to actively involve youngsters in educational projects about the Second World War and the Holocaust and the importance of this for contemporary society.

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Finland

This year the exhibition Anne Frank - A History for Today will travel through  Finland, visiting ten cities: Helsinki, Turku, Hämeenlinna, Raahe, Vaasa, Kokkola, Kuopio, Mikkeli, Rovaniemi and Espoo. Anne Frank’s engaging story touches people all around the world, providing an avenue to think and talk about themes such as prejudice, discrimination and human rights. Translated into Finnish and Swedish, the exhibition will initially be displayed in the Helsinki City Library. The opening is on 30 January.

The international travelling exhibition Anne Frank - A History for Today places the story of Anne Frank against the backdrop of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The heart of the exhibition consists of quotations from Anne Frank’s diary and the Frank family’s photographs. This is accompanied  by other personal narratives about the consequences of discrimination and persecution. One of the stories depicted is that of the Finnish-Jewish Hanna Eckhart, who survived the Holocaust. Additional panels address the theme Discrimination & Finland Nowadays.

Guides                                                                                                                                   

The exhibition is especially directed at young people. In all ten cities in Finland, youngsters serve as guides to the exhibition. A two-day training prepares them for this responsibility. They learn about the content and background of the exhibition, the best way to present the information to their peers and how to make contemporary topics discussable. 

Partners 

The exhibition Anne Frank - A History for Today is shown throughout the entire world. Each year there are more than 150 venues. The worldwide tour is co-ordinated by the Anne Frank House, but the realisation is placed in the hands of local partners. In Finland, the Anne Frank House is collaborating with the Helsinki City Library, the University of Helsinki, the Peace Education Initiative and the Finnish Jewish Community. 

Funding                                                                                                                               

This Finnish tour has been made ​​possible thanks to the support of the Finnish Ministry of Education, the Dutch Embassy, ​​the Israeli Embassy and the transport company DHL

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Opening of new exhibition

Today sees the opening of the new temporary exhibition in the Anne Frank House: 'We too might move on'. The exhibition sheds light on the flight of the Frank family, the Van Pels family and Fritz Pfeffer from Germany to Holland in the 1930’s and their subsequent vain attempts to find a safe refuge elsewhere. Eva Schloss-Geiringer, Holocaust survivor and stepdaughter of Otto Frank, will open the exhibition and talk about her life in Amsterdam after she escaped from Austria with her parents and brother in 1938. The exhibition will be on display in the Anne Frank House until 15 September 2012.

Eva Schloss-Geiringer

The exhibition places the story of the Frank family, the Van Pels family and Fritz Pfeffer in the context of the approximately 410,000 Jews who fled Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1941. After Hitler came to power in 1933, a large section of the German Jewish population left their fatherland. Between 1933 and 1941, approximately 280,000 Jews fled Nazi Germany and 130,000 left Austria, which had been annexed by Hitler: half of the total Jewish community of these countries. Several tens of thousands arrived in the Netherlands. For many of them it was only a stop on a longer journey.

The Frank and Van Pels families and Fritz Pfeffer also tried to move on from the Netherlands. On 24 December 1937 Edith Frank, Anne’s mother, wrote in a letter to a friend: 'We too might move on'. The Frank family tried to find a safe refuge in Britain, the USA and Cuba, the Van Pels family in the USA, and Fritz Pfeffer in Australia, Aruba and Chile. None of their attempts succeeded. They were betrayed, and sent to concentration camps. Otto Frank was the only one to survive.

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App Anne's Amsterdam

Anne’s Amsterdam, the mobile App from the Anne Frank House is now available. With this App, you can explore the city and discover what happened during World War II. The city’s history during the war is depicted in an innovative and interactive manner.

With this App you can collect thirty items in various locations in the city, such as places where Anne and her friends played, where they grew up and where they went to school. Because you find these items at specific locations, you will experience the city like you have never seen before. You will see personal stories, footage and unique war photos from the past as you are on today’s street. It is a powerful way in which the past and present come together.    

Anne’s Amsterdam is available for download for the iOS, Android and WP7 in Dutch, English and German versions.

Anne Frank’s Amsterdam

The mobile App is a part of Anne Frank’s Amsterdam, a multimedia project that is about Amsterdam, Anne Frank and the Jewish community. Anne Frank’s Amsterdam is available in Dutch, English and German. Making the site available in other languages will create a wider audience of viewer interest. Moreover, it will enable English and German speakers to learn more about Amsterdam, especially the stories and events surrounding the city during World War II.

The creation of the Anne Frank’s Amsterdam App is a gift presented to the Anne Frank House from Repudo and LBi.

More questions....

Questions and answers.

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Anne's Amsterdam

Starting today you can discover for yourself Anne Frank's and her contemporaries’ stories at thirty special places in the city with the Anne’s Amsterdam mobile application. The Anne Frank House has developed this App together with Repudo and LBi with the aim of making the city’s wartime history better known. Anne's Amsterdam is available in Dutch, English and German and suitable for smart phones with iOS, Android and WP7. 

With Anne’s Amsterdam you can view personal stories, film footage and unique photographs from the past at the same location today. There are images of Anne Frank and her friends on the Merwedeplein, German troops entering the city on the Rokin and the raid on the Jonas Daniël Meijerplein. This link between the past and the present enables you to see the city in a different way by which events of the war come to life. You can collect the stories, films and photos for your digital album on your telephone. You can also send your items per e-mail and encourage others to use the App via Facebook and Twitter.

In depth information

The items collected link to the website Anne Frank’s Amsterdam. A visual timeline gives in depth information and context. Personal stories, not previously published on the internet, from Jewish and non-Jewish eyewitnesses give a view of life during the occupation. The period before and after the occupation are also discussed, placing Amsterdam’s war time history in a broader perspective.

German soldiers being welcomed by Dutch Nazis on the Rokin (16 May 1940) blended into the street view of today.

Presentation and cooperation

The Anne Frank House, Repudo and LBi combined their historical, technological and creative forces in the joint development of the App. It is a gift to the Anne Frank House from Repudo and LBi, contributing to an innovative way of informing and involving the public in Amsterdam’s history.

More questions...

Questions and answers.

Posters

From 2 to 8 May there will be poster campaign in the city of Amsterdam to introduce the App. Cinema Tuschinski made the Anne’s Amsterdam campaign financially possible by gifting the proceeds from the auction of their old carpet to the Anne Frank House. The wartime history of Amsterdam’s oldest cinema can be found in the App as well as on the website.

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