Many personal documents and belongings of the Frank family, the other people in hiding and the helpers have been preserved. These objects form a part of the museum collection of the Anne Frank House.
Friendship book
The Anne Frank House has acquired a special album: a poëziealbum (a friendship book filled with verses and inspirational quotations from friends and family) with a handwritten verse by Anne Frank. Anne wrote the verse when she was 11 years old in the album of a classmate at the Montessori school. This classmate, now aged 88, wanted to donate the album to the Anne Frank House so the verse could be shared with a wide audience. The verse reveals a girl who goes to school, is sociable and has fun. The occupying Nazis had not yet shown their true face. The Anne Frank House was able to acquire the album with the financial support of the BankGiro Lottery and the Mondriaan Fund.
Merwedeplein
The Anne Frank House is the new owner of Anne Frank’s former home on the Merwedeplein square in Amsterdam. Its purpose remains the same: the apartment provides accommodation to writers from abroad who cannot work in freedom in their own countries. The Frank family lived in the apartment at Merwedeplein 37 II from December 1933 to July 1942. It was there that Anne first wrote in the diary she was given for her thirteenth birthday, on 12 June 1942. Three weeks later the Frank family went into hiding.
‘We find it important that Anne Frank’s former home is preserved and well managed. The apartment is inextricably linked with the legacy for which the Anne Frank House is responsible: the hiding place on the Prinsengracht and the original manuscripts of Anne Frank.’
Eva
88-year-old Eva Schloss received 13-year-old pupils from the Amsterdams Lyceum in Anne Frank’s former home on the 88th anniversary of Anne’s birth. As a child Eva also lived on the Merwedeplein square, and went to the Amsterdams Lyceum. Later, after the war, Eva’s mother married Anne’s father. Otto Frank became Eva’s stepfather. Eva told the pupils about her childhood. She also spoke of her time spent in hiding, her deportation to Auschwitz and the loss of her father and brother. At a pupil’s request she showed the number tattooed on her arm. The pupils were deeply moved by Eva’s story.