Anne Frank House Amsterdam

Anne Frank House - darkometer rating : 4 - The house in which Anne Frank wrote her famous diary while in hiding from Nazi persecution in Amsterdam during WWII . Now a museum and a major dark tourism destination. One of the world's best known and most popular – and hence often quite crowded. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations More background info: When Nazi Germany occupied the Netherlands and Amsterdam in the early stages of WWII , they soon introduced their persecution of the Jewish population – which ended in the Holocaust . When the pressure mounted, Jewish businessman Otto Frank decided to go into hiding with his family rather than risk being captured and deported. They moved into a space in a secret annexe to the merchant house he worked in on Prinsengracht canal. The entrance to the hiding place was concealed by a movable bookcase. Here, the Frank family, i.e. Otto, his wife Edith and their two daughters, Anne and her older sister Margot, held out together with four other Jews for just over two years. Non-Jewish office staff working in the front part of the merchant house helped them by bringing in food and other supplies as well as news from the outside world. Though in fairly cramped conditions and in constant fear of being found out, the eight refugees managed to survive in comparative comfort (compared to other hiding places of the period – there were many other cases). This also helped to give Anne Frank the space to write her famous diary. Meanwhile, the majority of Dutch Jews were deported to the death camps in the east of Poland . As news came of the Allies' invasion of mainland Europe and their pushing back of the Germans, hope grew among the refugees in hiding that they might indeed survive the war.