A full-scale replica of Anne Frank’s hidden outhouse is heading to New York for an exhibition

A full-scale replica of the rooms that form the heart of the Anne Frank House Museum on one of Amsterdam’s historic canals is being built in the Netherlands and shipped across the Atlantic for an exhibition titled “Anne Frank The Exhibition” at the center Jewish history in Manhattan.

“For the first time in history, the Anne Frank House will offer what I would describe as a groundbreaking experience outside of Amsterdam. To immerse visitors in a complete, meticulous recreation of the Secret Annex. These rooms where Anne Frank, her parents, her sister and four other Jews were hidden for more than two years to avoid capture by the Nazis,” Ronald Leopold, director of the Anne Frank House, told The Associated Press in an interview about the upcoming exhibition.

In July 1942, the then 13-year-old Anne Frank, her parents Otto and Edith and her 16-year-old sister Margo hid in the next building. A week later, the van Pels family joined them – Hermann, Auguste and their 15-year-old son Peter. Four months later, Fritz Pfeffer moved into hiding, also to avoid capture by the Nazi German occupiers in the Netherlands.

They remained in the adjoining rooms until they were discovered in 1944 and deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. Anne and her sister Margot were then taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they both died of typhus in February 1945. Anne was 15 years old.

Her father Otto, the only person from the Annex to survive the Holocaust, published Anne’s diary after the war and it became a global publishing sensation as a symbol of hope and resilience in the face of tyranny.

Leopold said the New York exhibition promises to be “an immersive, interactive and captivating experience” for visitors.

It opens on January 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

While the faithfully recreated room extension will be the centerpiece of the exhibition, it will also tell the story of Anne’s family from their time in Germany, their move to the Netherlands and the decision to go into hiding, to their discovery by the Nazis, deportation and deportation trace. Anne’s death and her father’s postwar decision to publish her diary.

“What we want to achieve with this exhibition is for people, our visitors, to learn about Anne, not just as a victim, but through the layered lens of a life, as a teenage girl, as a writer, as a symbol of resilience and resilience Strength. We hope they reflect on the context that has shaped their lives.”

The exhibition comes at a time of increasing anti-Semitism and anger over the devastating war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, which has now spread to the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon following Hamas’ deadly attacks in southern Israel on October 7, 2023 .

“With fewer and fewer survivors in our communities, with devastating anti-Semitism and other forms of group hatred on the rise in the United States and around the world, we believe that … our responsibility as the Anne Frank House has never been greater Leopold said: “And this exhibition is partly a response to the responsibility of educating people to stand against anti-Semitism and group hatred.”

Anne’s diary will not take part in the transatlantic voyage.

“Unfortunately we cannot travel with the diary, writings, notebooks and loose papers that Anne wrote. “They are too fragile, too vulnerable to travel,” Leopold said.

The 125 exhibits traveling from Amsterdam for the New York exhibition include photos, albums, artifacts such as one of the yellow stars that Jews were forced to wear in the occupied Netherlands, as well as the Best Supporting Actress Oscar that Shelley Winters won for her Role in George Stevens’ 1959 film The Diary of Anne Frank.