Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Common Living Room
This was also the kitchen and dining room. Otto Frank was well
off, and early on, the annex was well-stocked with food. Miep Gies
would dutifully take their shopping list, buy food for her “family”
of eight, and secretly lug it up to them. Buying such large quantities
in a coupon-rationed economy was highly suspect, but she knew a
sympathetic grocer (a block away on Leliegracht) who was part of
a ring of Amsterdammers risking their lives to help the Jews.
The
menu
for a special dinner lists soup, roast beef, salad,
potatoes, rice, dessert, and coffee. Later, as war and German
restrictions plunged Holland into poverty and famine, they
survived on canned foods and dried kidney beans.
At night, the living room became sleeping quarters for
Hermann and Auguste van Pels.
Peter van Pels' Room
On Peter's 16th birthday, he got a Monopoly-like board game
called “The Broker” as a present.
Initially, Anne was cool toward Peter, but after two years
together, a courtship developed, and their flirtation culminated in
a kiss.
The staircase (no visitor access) leads up to where they stored
their food. Anne loved to steal away here for a bit of privacy. At
night, they'd open a hatch to let in fresh air.
One hot August day, Otto was in this room helping Peter
learn English, when they looked up to see a man with a gun. The
hiding was over.
• From here, we leave the Secret Annex, returning to the Opekta store-
room and offices in the front house. As you work your way downstairs,
you'll see a number of exhibits on the aftermath of this story.
Front House: The Arrest, Deportation, and
Auschwitz Exhibits
They went quietly. On August 4, 1944, a German policeman
accompanied by three Dutch Nazis pulled up in a car, politely
entered the Opekta office, and went straight to the bookcase
entrance. No one knows who tipped them off. The police gave the
surprised hiders time to pack. They demanded their valuables and
stuffed them into Anne's briefcase...after dumping her diaries onto
the floor.
Taken in a van to Gestapo headquarters, the eight were pro-
cessed in an efficient, bureaucratic manner, then placed on a train
to Westerbork, a concentration camp northeast of the city (see
their 3-inch-by-5-inch
registration cards
).
From there, they were locked in a car on a normal passenger
train and sent to Auschwitz, a Nazi extermination camp in Poland
