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Anne Frank House Museum

Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

Lineup at the entrance

The Anne Frank House is the building where Anne Frank wrote her famous diary while hiding with her family from the Nazi's during World War II. The building has been turned into a museum that takes you through the various rooms in the house and tells you about Anne Frank's story. You begin at the main entrance of the building and work your way up, going behind the moving bookcase, and into the secret attic. The hidden part of the house actually has several rooms and two levels.

The museum contained several short videos about Anne. Some of the videos were interviews with people who were close to her. Each room had a few artifacts from Anne's life, such as the board game her brother received for his birthday, photo clippings that Anne posted on her room walls and replicas of the actual diary. There were quotes from the diary written on the walls along the way.

It was neat to see the house they lived in after having read the book. It was quite different than what we had pictured. It was quite a bit larger than what we imagined. The movies were also quite interesting.

At the end of the museum, you exit through the building next door. On the main floor, there was an exhibit called "Freedom 2 Choose". This exhibit presented a number of controversial questions about freedom and individual rights. Several buttons were placed around the room. After each question, the people in the room had an opportunity to press a button corresponding to their answer. Once everyone voted, the results were shown, both based on the current vote results, and based on historical results from previous visitors. It was a very neat exhibit, and contained very thought-provoking questions, especially after just having gone through the museum.

Estimated Visiting Time

The museum is quite popular, but small. Hence, there is often a long line up of people outside. We arrived around 1:30 pm and waited 30 minutes in line. We spent about 50 minutes walking through the house and another 20 minutes at the "Freedom 2 Choose" exhibit.

Cost & Other Information

The cost was €7.50 for adults.

Although photography is not allowed in the museum, they do not make you check your cameras.

There are free bathrooms available in the museum.

There are several stairs (including some steep ones) involved in the museum, and I'm not sure how high the elevator access goes.