Amsterdam: The Anne Frank House
Over the years, I must have been to hundreds of museums,
whether these celebrated art, history, engineering, or the perfect artichoke.
Most of them have caught my attention in one way or another, while others would
amount to little more than a power walk or the short time it takes between
entering and exiting the place. Some places make the subject matter come to
life the way you couldn’t possibly imagine. The Motown Museum in Detroit, for
example, has that effect on me. Picturing some of the musical giants like Smoky
Robinson, Marvin Gaye, or Stevie Wonder congregate in that tiny house in the
Motor City still gives me the chills.
I now find this to be true of the Anne Frank House in
Amsterdam.
First of all, I need to make clear that The Diary of Anne Frank is required reading in German schools at a
very young age (seventh grade for me, I recall). People who claim Germany never
learned their lesson or choose to ignore their past couldn’t be more wrong if
they proclaimed that Disney World was the epicenter of the universe, and that
the mascots of Mickey Mouse and Goofy were actually remote controlled robots
designed to take out Orange County in a gory shooting rampage. Germans, quite
possibly, are the first to know about their history, and in ways other nations
can’t even begin to imagine. There’s the literature, of course. There’s the
visit to the first concentration camp in Dachau, among many other harrowing
visits to the past.
Like every school kid at an impressionable age, I too rooted
for Anne Frank to make it out of the attic, for her family to happily assemble
down by the canal after radio messages happily announced the end of the war. I
wished for her to marry Peter, settle down as a writer, and for her diary to be
an historic piece of literature, although not the milestone it became owing to
her blood that needed to be shed. After I finished the book, I wished that I
had never heard of Anne Frank, and that the house there now would be just one
of thousands looming over the canals of Amsterdam.
I walk through the Anne Frank House in a daze, as if time
had frozen and I was back in 1942 Amsterdam, my eyes taking in the most minute
details, from the copplestone of the groundfloor warehouse to the contours of
the wooden desks used by the office personnel until it is time to approach the
wooden bookcase. I am a nervous wreck, and my heart is about to explode from
out of my ribcage. BOOM-BOOM. BOOM-BOOM. BOOM-BOOM. It certainly doesn’t
compare to the collective baited breath exuded by the Frank family over years
of what amounted to house arrest, but it is stunning nonetheless.
There are the stairs leading up to the back apartment. Here
the parents’ beds, finally the attic. I steal a few glances out of the window
and realize how Anne Frank and her family never had that privilege in all those
years.
After taking all of this in, I slowly trudge down the
stairs, still in a state of shock. Finally I have seen the place, and I
couldn’t come away from it feeling less humbled by it all. I skip the Hollywood
section of the museum downstairs, where an Academy Award has been donated and
letters of various Hollywood dignitaries adorn the walls. Although Anne Frank
certainly makes for a compelling story and is one too difficult for even
Hollywood to ignore, there is so little chance of any director, actor, or
producer getting any subject matter as profound as this one right.
Finally, the cold Amsterdam evening awaits, and I feel
lucky. What would Anne Frank have given to actually experience the miserable
cold outside after years of being locked up? She would experience one more
summer evening outside in Amsterdam on the day of her betrayal, although that
march down to the Gestapo station must have felt colder than any winter night
since.
There is nothing more to be said, really. Anne Frank’s words
speak a language that is perfectly clear.
0 comments