I knew I'd be in a different country for my birthday.
I had in my mind that I'd see Anne Frank's "House," more appropriately "The Secret Annex" that day. Since I was meeting up with Wendy and co. in the afternoon I planned to see her house in the morning.
"All the tickets are sold out," the girl said on the phone, three weeks earlier. "But come stand in line, we won't turn you away. Get there early!"
"The lines are insane," everyone says. And it's a small house.
The day before my birthday, I arrive in Amsterdam. I check-in to my hostel after walking forty-five minutes from the train station, weary, with my Osprey clinging to me.
I arrive at Stayokay, which might be one of the best hostels I've stayed at thus far. The room is so-roomy. Especially after Paris. I felt I had centimeters around my bed. Here I have meters. And the breakfasts are amazing. It was the last hostel I looked at. The name put me off. Life is weird, no?
So it's 6:30pm and I venture off into Amsterdam to find this house of Anne's, so I can learn the way and not have to figure it out in the morning when I'm a zombie.
It's still light out. Heck it's still light out at 10pm. I forget what it's like back at home this time of year. It always gets dark around 7 or 8, my gut tells me.
On the train ride to Holland I watched the Diary of Anne Frank on my iPod, a version in color that I've never seen before. In one scene she's looking out the window and turns, you see her face smiling on the sunlight and a clock tower in the window. It's dramatic. Pretty. A perfect scene capturing her happiness and aspirations. Just the angle I would have shot.
I'm thinking, that's too perfect. Creative liberty. Like a Peter Pan moment. No way is the tower that close and visible from that window.
As I venture close I hear bells.
I look up.
"That's the freaking clock tower," I said to myself. "It does exist!" This is a *moment*.
I'm looking at the same clock Anne saw when she looked out the window. Time freezes, and passes.
But does the window actually face the tower? Nah it must be creative liberty. I wonder why my mind refuses to believe the possibility.
As I get close, a weird feeling emerges. I almost can't look at the house, even though I don't know what it looks like. It's as if I don't want the feeling of "going to see the house" to go away. Yeah I'm weird but I don't know why.
My feet are blistered, all two of 'em. I'm limping ahead. I am exhausted. I can't go in this state..I think my mind wants some sort of perfect moment to...somehow feel worthy of approaching Anne's House.
"It's just a building," I think. But I know myself better than that..
My eyes look and don't look for the house. Like gazing at the sun then turning away.
"That's the one,it's gotta be!" I say, but they all look the same. The tree she looked at, isn't that it?
I walk yonder. Put my map away. Listen to Auld Lang Syne whilst I search. I'm close..
I grow frustrated. I remember the Secret Annex is behind a building -the storehouse at the time, so you can't really see it from the street. But it's next to this canal.
I wander down. Pass a glass building with fancy stairs visible inside that go up three or four layers.
Embedded in the window are these words: Anne Frank Huis.
I shake my head and go, "they've modernized the front!"
Part of me is happy I found it, part of me is disappointed. I want to see it as it was -even the storefront. Maybe that part was changed or destroyed later. Ah well.
I look at the hours. 9:00-21:00
I do a double-take at the door. Because it's open. There's someone at the counter inside. And there are two women at the door. That's...the line? It's...open?
I stand there for a minute calculating 21:00 with my fingers. Yeah and I got straight A's in math..
It's 7pm now. It closes at 9pm. I ponder the effect of going now versus on my birthday, and simplicity wins over nostalgic perfection so I go in. Headphones around my head, I feel compelled to stuff them away. This is a moment.
I hand €8.50 to the lady through the semicircle cash rotating thingy. A ticket returns to me via the other half of the semicircle. Little things like that are so symbolic of life, but no time for that, I'm at Anne Frank's Secret Annex!
In the first room are a few quotes from Anne, and four photos of her taking up almost the entire wall corner. She's smiling, then turning to the side. Almost a four-frame animation. You can almost see her as she was..
I looked. And looked. And looked. People came and went. I stood there and looked at Anne.
All the journal entries, really specific parts, came to mind in a flurry. It's as if I were trying to sum up her entire life in a few moments. Slow down. I did. I remembered one or two or three moments. Established a face to them.
"You're the reason I'm here." I thought. "And you'll never know it."
That made me more sad than happy.
Looking at photos makes me switch to the past tense, so now I return to the moment.
I go in the doorway. I love doorways. They're the best things ever after ice cream.
We go to a room showing how the layout of the annex looked with models. I peer at this model like a child who has just created a Lego Masterpiece.
"Anne's room is there!" I exclaim to myself. And her desk. Where she wrote some of her entries. She shared the room with Mr. Dussel, a dentist. I spot his tooth extraction model, recognizing it from the movie.
Anne's parents and her sister Margot were next door. The restroom was on this floor, but they could only use it on evenings and weekends when employees downstairs left for home.
The Van Daan's were upstairs; they slept in the kitchen space. Peter was next door in a cozy room, the stairs to the attic were there, where Anne and Peter spent so much time.
You would probably too. It had the only window to the outside world..
The rest were covered and they lived in darkness and silence during the day. It's enough to drive you mad. But Anne wrote. And before long I was standing where she wrote. Her desk was here..the room's empty of furniture by request of Otto Frank (sometimes you don't want time to stand still), but photos and models show me where things were.
Posters of movie stars remain on her wall.
The queen and the royal family.
Cute babies and rabbits.
Some of them partially ripped off. Most still intact.
But the one that got me was a picture of an animal- a squirrel or something- with wacky eyes. A caricature but a real photo. Maybe altered with a 1940s version of Photoshop? Haha.
It's the kind of silly photo any kid would look at and laugh at today. I don't know why it affected me so much. Maybe it was just different than the other pictures on the wall. Maybe i imagined her laughing. Maybe things and people share a collective giggle that spans all of humanity.
What??
On the other wall, more pictures. She livened up this dull room.
"We're standing where Anne slept," I mentioned to the guy next to me. Out of respect or something, he took a step back.
It's okay, I think she enjoys out company. Now where have I heard that before?
Marks on the wall for Anne and Margot's height. Still there.
The map Otto used to track the Allied invasion. Still there. Pin marks in them.
The Normandy Invasion..I wasn't too far from there three weeks ago. What am I doing, chasing history?
Then up to the kitchen.. I am beginning to understand life here, spatially.
Peter's room.
I gaze up.
The attic.
The entrance is covered by a glass/plastic cover, and the ladder/stairs are too. So I walk next to it and gaze up. I can see part of the window she gazed out. This is the room where she looked out into the world. Where she felt most at peace. Where she and Peter really talked. I wonder how we'd view things had we not had Anne's diary.
Would this place even be a museum? Would it still exist?
I don't know why it's blocked off. I lean up. See as much as I can. I don't know why. This room more than the others. But I can't. I see the window..
I think of how she said it's easier to talk about deep things with someone (Peter in her case haha) when you're gazing out the window. So many entries were influenced by this room. The Chestnut Tree..
I feel like things are left unsaid, memories undiscovered up there. I know it's just an empty room of wood. Part of me is disappointed. Part of me feels that leaving it untouched is fitting.
Afterwards I slip out the corridor back to the museum. I see a window. I look out. The attic window is in view. And. It. Faces. The. Clock. Tower.
It was a moment.
Farewell Anne.
Or in Dutch,
Afscheid, Anne
Downstairs they had a section devoted to Margot. The smart, quiet, tall one. She went skiing in the Alps. She wanted to be a nurse in Palestine.
They also had a room with video screens. Showing real-life stories like racial profiling in Amsterdam regarding internet scams or political demonstrations in an African country. They ask a question, "should this be kept the same way?" and let the people vote.
It's cool. I felt like an American. Democracy, yay!
I like how they continue the theme of discrimination surrounding Anne's story into practical terms that apply today. The trial never ends.. Leave this place thinking about something you can do.
The museum was closing.
I asked the front reception girl why the attic was blocked off.
"It would collapse if anyone went up there," she said.
Sometimes history is best left undisturbed..
I head out.
As I do, the clock tower chimes.
I gaze at it, one last time..
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