Full-scale replica of Anne Frank's hidden annex to go on show in New York

A central feature of the Anne Frank House museum, set on one of Amsterdam's historic canals, are the very rooms where the young Jewish diarist and her family hid from Nazi occupiers. Now a full-scale replica of this hidden annex is heading across the Atlantic.

“For the first time in history, the Anne Frank House will present what I would call a pioneering experience outside of Amsterdam. To immerse visitors in a full-scale, meticulous recreation of the secret annex. Those rooms where Anne Frank, her parents, her sister, four other Jews, spent more than two years hiding to evade Nazi capture,” Anne Frank House director Ronald Leopold told The Associated Press in an interview about the forthcoming exhibition.

Constructed to mirror the actual annex where Anne penned her famous diary, the replica invites visitors to step into the world she inhabited, experiencing the cramped quarters and the realities of life in hiding.

A quick reminder of Anne Frank’s story: in July 1942, a 13-year-old Anne, along with parents Otto and Edith, and her 16-year-old sister Margot, sought refuge in the hidden annex in Amsterdam. Shortly thereafter, the family was joined by the van Pels family – Hermann, Auguste, and their 15-year-old son, Peter. Four months later, Fritz Pfeffer also entered the annex, seeking to escape the Nazi occupiers in the Netherlands.

The group remained in the annex for two years, living in constant fear of discovery. In 1944, their hiding place was compromised, leading to their deportation to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. Anne and Margot were later transported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they succumbed to typhus in February 1945, just weeks before the camp's liberation. Anne