Anne Frank was a young Jewish girl who hid with her family and friends in a secret annex portion of an office building along the Prinsengracht canal in Amsterdam. Frank was 15 years old when she died in March 1945 inside a concentration camp, just a couple months before Allied Forces liberated the camps. Throughout her two-year ordeal of hiding from Nazi persecution, Frank kept a diary. The book was left behind in her hiding place when she was discovered and transported to a concentration camp. It was later published as The Diary of a Young Girl, which became a famous, beloved classic piece of literature.
The building where Anne Frank hid was built in 1635, renovated in 1739, and originally served as a private residence. Throughout the 20th Century, the building was used as offices for various companies before finally being obtained by Anne Frank's father, Otto, in 1940. Sadly, Otto would be the only one of the eight hidden people to survive the concentration camp. Two of Otto's employees helped hide the group in the rear upper floor of the building, above Otto's office. Those employees, Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl, also helped supply the hidden group with supplies for two years. After the group was discovered by Nazi soldiers acting on an anonymous tip, Gies and Voskuijl returned to the secret annex illegally to gather the family's personal items, which were later returned to Otto Frank. Anne Frank's diary was among that collection of items.
The structure opened as a museum in 1960 after surviving a battle against developers wanting to replace the Anna Frank Huis and the entire block of buildings with a large factory. Petitioners and protesters helped the cause, as did the Anne Frank Foundation created by Otto Frank. The building closed in 1970 because heavy foot traffic had created a need for renovation work. It was reopened in 1999 and remains one of the most popular tourist attractions in Amsterdam.
