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A visit to Anne Frank House is usually at the top of people’s list when traveling to Amsterdam. The Anne Frank House Museum in central Amsterdam is a haunting yet beautiful house that is home to the diary that Anne wrote during her long days in hiding. For an authentic, subdued experience that is historical and eye-opening this tribute to the family and people who hid from the Nazis during the Second World War is not to be missed.
About Anne Frank House
Since its initial opening in 1960, The Anne Frank House has been attracting more than a million visitors each year. While the Anne Frank House Museum is very busy, the house is a moving space and one that is worth the visit. We visited Anne Frank House on our first visit to Amsterdam years ago and it has always stayed with us.
Since it had been a while, we enlisted the help of KT Browne to update the details of how to enter, and what to expect during your visit to the Anne Frank House Museum.
The annex, still visible today, was hidden from view by nearby houses during the war, which made it the perfect hiding place. The house itself was used by Otto Frank to run his workshop which he rented from the Pieron Family. The ground and first floor were used for his business and the rest was used as offices space and storage.
When things became too dangerous, the Frank family used the second and third floors to go into hiding. Business continued as usual on the ground and first floors and the only access to their hiding place was through the bookcase. The unusual setup of the house, made it so that nobody took notice of what went on behind the bookcase in the secret annex of Prinsengracht 263.
Tips for visiting Anne Frank House
Located right at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam on the Prinsengracht Canal, the inhabited rooms of the Anne Frank House are only 500 square feet in total. It consists of the main house and the hidden annex, which is where Anne Frank went into hiding and wrote her famous, beloved diary during World War II.
There are numerous exhibition spaces throughout the museum that show various pages from her notebook, a wide array of artifacts, bookcases, and former living spaces.
Tickets to The Anne Frank House are only sold online and allocated for specific time slots—so be sure to show up on time! Because the house is so popular, crowds are common at the Anne Frank House Museum entrance, but they do seem to disappear once inside thanks to the time slots, along with a quiet and calm atmosphere. Purchase your tickets to Anne Frank House in advance here.
If you cannot make your time and tickets are already booked, they do not reschedule or offer refunds, so make sure you will be going on the day you plan for. They used to allot 20% of tickets to be sold on the same day, but that option is no longer available.
Once inside, there are no guided tours offered at Anne Frank House, but there is a free audio tour. It certainly deepens the experience, so we highly recommend it.
Photography is not allowed inside the museum in order to preserve the quality of the artifacts. Leave your camera at home. Also, since there are many narrow stairwells, the house isn’t recommended for people with mobility issues.
Introductory Program
Before visiting Anne Frank House make sure to read the Diary of Anne Frank. It will give you a deeper understanding of the experience. You can purchase it here on Amazon for Kindle, audiobook, hardcover or paperback.
If you haven’t read the book, you can purchase a 30-minute introductory program that you can do before your visit. You will learn of the history of Anne Frank and about the persecution of Jews during the Second World War. It will give you a better understanding to help prepare you for your visit.
Above all, visit The Anne Frank House with an open heart and mind; it’s a little slice of a very important part of history that we all would benefit from knowing more about.
What to Expect in Anne Frank House
Visitors have the chance to wander through the museum’s many rooms, nooks, and crannies to get a real sense of Anne Frank’s experience. Through quotes, photos, film images, and a wide range of original items (including her beloved diary), Anne Frank is brought to life in an authentic yet respectful way. It’s an experience that shouldn’t be missed.
The house’s steep stairwells and original artifacts are incredibly moving, a walk through Anne Frank House pulls you back in time.
Visitors can wander freely throughout Anne Frank House, so be sure to take as much in as you can. Also, don’t miss the hinged bookcase and the entrance to the secret annex behind it—it’s extraordinary.
The main exhibition space is a thoughtful, rich tribute to the persecution and discrimination of Anne and thousands of Jews faced during the war. Much of the Anne Frank House museum is perfectly preserved, making the experience of visiting incredibly authentic, if not slightly haunting.
About Anne Frank
Anne Frank was a young Jewish girl, who hid from the Nazis with her family and four other people in the “secret annex” of this 17th-century canal house during World War II. Anne remained hidden in the annex for two years and one month until the Nazi authorities raided the space, arrested her and others she was in hiding with. They deported them to concentration camps which ultimately led to her death where she died of Typhus Fever at the age of 15.
Only Anne’s father Otto survived the concentration camps. It was recently discovered that Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish figure in Amsterdam betrayed Anne Frank’s family to save his own. After 70 years of speculation, a team of investigators finally put the pieces of the puzzle together. You can read more details here.
In 1947, Anne posthumously became world-famous because of the diary she wrote while in hiding for two years. Her diary along with hundreds of loose pages chronicled her life in poetic detail.
The Diary of Anne Frank is a detailed account of daily events, along with her fears, hopes, and dreams, and has come to be loved by millions around the world not only because of the acute insight it offers about the nature of man but because it’s beautifully written. Read it now and order on Amazon
If you are visiting Amsterdam, save these Anne Frank House tips to Pinterest for future travel planning.
When visiting Amsterdam be sure to put Anne Frank House Museum at the top of your list. The pictures taped to the walls of Anne Frank’s bedroom and other exhibits offer a better understanding of an incredible person and the opportunity to reflect on the resilience of the human spirit at large.
You may be interested in this tour to accompany your visit to Anne Frank House Museum. Jewish Cultural Quarter Tour includes an entrance to the Jewish Cultural Quarter that you can visit before or after your tour, and then you can join a 2-hour tour of this Anne Frank-themed walking tour. If you want to enter Anne Frank House you will need to purchase that ticket online separately in advance.
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