The Anne Frank House: A Historical Overview

At Prinsengracht 263 in the heart of Amsterdam's canal district stands a seventeenth-century canal house that, outwardly, looks much like any other along this stretch of water. Yet this unassuming building holds a place in modern history that few other residential structures anywhere in the world can claim. It was here, in a concealed rear annex, that Anne Frank — a Jewish girl born in Frankfurt am Main — spent more than two years in hiding during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The diary she kept during that time would become one of the most widely read documents of the twentieth century, and the building itself would be preserved as a museum and memorial of global significance. Understanding the Amsterdam history of this site requires looking at both the personal story it contains and the broader historical forces that created it.

Anne Frank's Early Life

Annelies Marie Frank was born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the second daughter of Otto Frank and Edith Frank-Holländer. Her older sister, Margot, had been born three years earlier. The Frank family was part of a liberal Jewish community that had been established in Germany for generations. However, the rise of the National Socialist (Nazi) party under Adolf Hitler, and particularly the anti-Jewish legislation that followed the Nazi seizure of power in January 1933, made life in Germany increasingly untenable for Jewish families.

In the autumn of 1933, Otto Frank moved to Amsterdam, where he established a business trading in pectin, a gelling agent used in jam production. The rest of the family followed shortly after. For the next several years, Anne and Margot grew up as ordinary Amsterdam children — attending school, making friends, and learning Dutch alongside their native German. Amsterdam, with its tradition of tolerance and its large established Jewish community, seemed a safe haven from the persecution escalating across the border.

The German Occupation

That sense of safety was shattered on May 10, 1940, when German forces invaded the Netherlands. Within five days, the Dutch military capitulated, and a German civilian administration was installed. The occupation brought with it a progressively tightening web of anti-Jewish measures, mirroring those already enforced in Germany and Austria. Jewish citizens were required to register, forbidden from using public transport, barred from parks and cinemas, and eventually forced to wear a yellow star. Jewish children, including Anne and Margot, were removed from public schools and required to attend separate Jewish schools.

By 1942, the situation had become dire. Deportation notices — euphemistically called "work assignment" orders — began arriving for Jewish residents. On July 5, 1942, a notice arrived for sixteen-year-old Margot Frank. The family had already been preparing an emergency plan. The following day, July 6, the Franks went into hiding.

The Secret Annex at Prinsengracht 263

The hiding place — known in Dutch as the Achterhuis, or "rear house" — occupied the upper floors of the back section of Otto Frank's business premises at Prinsengracht 263. The front part of the building continued to function as a commercial office, while the rear annex was concealed behind a movable bookcase built across the entrance to the stairway. This arrangement was maintained with the knowledge and active assistance of several of Otto Frank's employees, including Miep Gies, Johannes Kleiman, Victor Kugler, and Bep Voskuijl, who risked their own lives to supply food, news, and emotional support to those in hiding.

The Frank family was joined by four others: Hermann van Pels, his wife Auguste, and their son Peter — business associates of Otto Frank — and later by Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist. In total, eight people lived in the confined space of the annex for over two years. They could not go outside, could not make noise during business hours, and depended entirely on their helpers for contact with the outside world. The windows were covered to prevent anyone from seeing in, and daily routines were governed by the need for absolute silence and invisibility.

The Diary

Anne Frank had received a red-and-white checkered autograph book for her thirteenth birthday, just weeks before the family went into hiding. She began using it as a diary, addressing her entries to an imaginary friend named "Kitty." Over the course of the next two years, Anne filled this diary and several additional notebooks with her observations, thoughts, fears, and aspirations. She wrote about the daily tensions of living in close quarters, the characters and moods of her fellow occupants, her complicated relationship with her mother, her growing affection for Peter van Pels, and her desire to become a writer after the war.

In the spring of 1944, Anne heard a radio broadcast by the Dutch Minister of Education in exile, Gerrit Bolkestein, who called on Dutch citizens to preserve personal documents — diaries, letters — as a record of life under occupation. Inspired by this, Anne began revising and editing her diary entries with an eye toward eventual publication. This revised version demonstrated a literary sophistication and emotional maturity remarkable for someone her age. She titled the planned work Het Achterhuis — "The Secret Annex."

Anne Frank's diary has been translated into more than seventy languages and has sold over 30 million copies worldwide. It is one of the most widely read non-fiction works of the twentieth century.

Discovery and Aftermath

On August 4, 1944, the hiding place was raided by German police. The exact circumstances of the betrayal remain a subject of historical investigation and debate, and despite numerous inquiries over the decades, no definitive conclusion has been reached. All eight occupants of the annex were arrested and transported first to the Westerbork transit camp in the north of the Netherlands, and from there to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in occupied Poland.

Anne and Margot Frank were later transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, where both sisters died of typhus in February or March 1945 — just weeks before the camp was liberated by British forces on April 15, 1945. Of the eight people who had hidden in the annex, only Otto Frank survived the war. He returned to Amsterdam in June 1945.

Miep Gies, who had found Anne's diary papers scattered on the floor of the annex after the arrest, had kept them in her desk drawer throughout the remainder of the war, unread, hoping to return them to Anne personally. When it became clear that Anne had not survived, Gies gave the papers to Otto Frank. After considerable deliberation and encouragement from friends, Otto Frank arranged for the diary to be published. The first Dutch edition, titled Het Achterhuis, appeared in 1947.

Preservation as a Memorial

In the years following the war, the building at Prinsengracht 263 faced an uncertain future. By the late 1950s, there were plans to demolish the entire block for commercial redevelopment. A public campaign, supported by prominent Dutch citizens and international voices, succeeded in saving the building. The Anne Frank House was established as a museum and memorial on May 3, 1960, and has since become one of the most visited cultural heritage sites in the Netherlands.

The museum preserves the hiding place in its original condition — empty of furniture, as it was after the arrest, in accordance with Otto Frank's wishes. Visitors pass through the movable bookcase and into the rooms of the annex where the eight occupants lived. The original diary, along with other personal documents and photographs, is displayed within the museum. The site serves not only as a memorial to those who perished but also as an educational institution, with programs focused on anti-discrimination, human rights, and the lessons of the Holocaust.

The Prinsengracht and Its Context

The location of the Anne Frank House along the Prinsengracht is itself historically meaningful. As the outermost of Amsterdam's three main canals, the Prinsengracht has historically been associated with commerce and modest residential life — a contrast to the grander Herengracht and Keizersgracht closer to the city center. The neighborhood surrounding Prinsengracht 263 includes the Westerkerk, whose bell tower is visible from the annex and whose carillon chimes Anne described in her diary. The Jordaan neighborhood lies just across the canal. For a broader understanding of the area's development, see our article on the history of the Canal belt.

Today, Prinsengracht 263 stands as a quiet but powerful reminder of the human cost of persecution and the importance of preserving cultural heritage and historical memory. It is one of those rare places where the personal and the historical converge so completely that a visit becomes an act of remembrance in itself. For those exploring the wider canal district, our main cultural guide provides additional context on the landmarks, neighborhoods, and history of this remarkable part of Amsterdam.