The diaries of Anne Frank ‘come home’ - the official Anne Frank House website

The diaries of Anne Frank ‘come home’

From now on, all the diaries and writings of Anne Frank will be on display in the house in which they were written, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.

The Minister of Education, Culture and Science (OCW), Ronald Plasterk, has approved an agreement concluded by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD), the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and the Anne Frank House (AFH), under which the NIOD will permanently give all the writings of Anne Frank on loan to the AFH. All the parties involved, including the Minister, signed this agreement today, 11 June 2009, on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the birth of Anne Frank. From 1 November 2009, all the works of Anne Frank will be on public display in a newly designed exhibition hall in the Anne Frank House.

The aim of the new loan agreement is to facilitate the optimum exhibition of the diaries and writings for a large audience. Needless to say, there is no better place for such an exhibition than the Anne Frank House itself. In this way, justice is done to the great significance of Anne’s writings as part of the Dutch cultural heritage. It is also important that the value of the writings as archival documents and subjects of scholarly research remains safeguarded.

Otto Frank

Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father, died in 1980. In his will he left to the National Institute for War documentation (RIOD) all Anne’s diaries and writings and the photograph album they made in the secret annexe. The diaries thus became part of the collection of the RIOD, now the NIOD. At the time of Otto Frank’s death, some of Anne’s writings had already been given on loan to the AFH and were on display in the Anne Frank House. Since 1980, the NIOD has regularly loaned diaries to the Anne Frank House.

On permanent display

After the concluding of the new agreement between the NIOD and the AFS, all Anne’s writings will be on permanent display: not only the red-checked diary but also the second and third diaries, the Tales from the Secret Annexe (Verhaaltjesboek) and the Favourite Quotes Notebook (Mooie Zinnenboek). Forty of the several hundred, very brittle, loose sheets on which Anne rewrote her diary from May 1944, will be on permanent alternating display.

Reactions

Minister Plasterk: “Anne Frank is world famous, and it is wonderful that the Dutch nation and visitors from all over the globe can now for the first time see the original versions of her complete works, and, moreover, view them in the house where she wrote them. I hope and expect that this will further increase interest in her history and in our history.”

President Dijkgraaf of the KNAW: "The diaries of Anne Frank are of priceless value and significance for the public at large and for the academic community. Through this sincere cooperation between the NIOD and the AFH these two aspects find their natural home."

Director Marjan Schwegman of the NIOD: “Anne Frank would have celebrated her 80th birthday tomorrow, but she will remain a young girl forever. Because her diaries have remained intact we know what it meant for a young Jewish girl to live in hiding. Her experience is both unique and exemplary, and it therefore touches millions of people all over the world. Through this new agreement, her life story will be brought into even greater relief and thus have an even greater impact.”

Director Westra of the AFH: “It is wonderful that after so many years the diaries are ‘coming home’, coming back to the place where they were written. It was Otto Frank’s wish that Anne Frank’s legacy of ideas would be spread across the world. By displaying her writings in the Anne Frank House we can explain to the public at large how Anne compiled her diaries and how she developed as a writer.”

This is a collective press release of the Ministry of OCW and the KNAW, NIOD and Anne Frank House.