Anne Frank flat to open to public for 1 day
Paying guests to be given one-off chance to view Amsterdam apartment where Jewish diarist lived with her family before they went into hiding from Nazis during World War II
Paying guests are to be given a one-off chance to view the apartment where Jewish diarist Anne Frank lived with her family before they went into hiding from the Nazis during World War II, the housing corporation that owns it said last week.
Ymere corporation said in a statement that a maximum of 300 people will next month be allowed to wander through the building where Anne lived from 1933 to 1942.
The corporation bought the apartment on Merwedeplein, a street in southern Amsterdam, in 2004 and with the help of the Anne Frank Foundation restored it to 1930s style — "the same atmosphere as the Frank family left behind," Ymere said in a statement.
A Dutch foundation now uses it for a writer-in-residence program for foreign writers who are oppressed in their home country.
On leaving the apartment, the family moved to a small hidden apartment behind a canal house where Anne wrote most of the diary that turned her into a symbol of Jewish suffering during the Holocaust after it was posthumously published.
Anne and her family were captured after two years in hiding. She died in a German concentration camp in 1945.
The apartment will be opened on December 10 with €7.50 ($10.00) tickets sold at the nearby Jimmink bookstore.
Spokesman Andre Bakker said the group would give preference "to people from the neighborhood."
