A full-scale recreation of Anne Frank's Secret Annex shows how her family lived in seclusion. Take a look.
A new exhibit in New York City lets you step inside Anne Frank's Secret Annex.
Feb 6, 2025 - 15:39
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Anne Frank and Fritz Pfeffer's room inside the annex.
John Halpern/Anne Frank The Exhibition
Anne Frank famously kept a diary while hiding from the Nazis during World War II.
A new exhibit in New York City features a replica of the family's Secret Annex.
The full-scale recreation is furnished as it was when Anne and her family went into hiding.
Anne Frank's "The Diary of a Young Girl" remains one of the most famous and powerful works of the 20th century — and one of the most poignant accounts of a young person's life during the Holocaust.
Now, a new exhibit in New York City allows visitors to step inside a recreated version of the home where Anne Frank and her family once lived in complete secrecy.
"Anne Frank The Exhibition," an immersive experience at the Center for Jewish History near Union Square, features a full-scale replica of the Secret Annex where Anne and her family lived in hiding in Amsterdam for two years.
The annex is furnished just as it was during the Franks' years in seclusion, allowing visitors to experience the space as they did and gain a deeper understanding of the day-to-day lives of Anne, her family, and the others who lived there.
"This exhibition arrives at a time when teaching the lessons of history is urgent," Ronald Leopold, the executive director of the Anne Frank House, which has partnered with the Center for Jewish History to create the exhibit, told Business Insider.
"Across the United States and around the world, we are witnessing a troubling rise in antisemitism and other forms of group hatred. The Anne Frank House has always felt a deep responsibility to counter these forces through education, and this exhibition is a powerful response to that mission."
Photos show inside the new exhibition in New York City.
Anne Frank The Exhibit is located in Union Square in New York City.
Frank was one of 1.5 million Jewish children killed by Nazi officials and their collaborators, the exhibit creators said. The Holocaust claimed the lives of 6 million Jewish people.
Inside the exhibit, visitors can walk through a recreation of the famous bookcase entrance that concealed the Secret Annex.
The bookcase door leading into the recreated annex.
John Halpern/Anne Frank The Exhibition
The exhibit is similar to the installation inside the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.
However, the actual Anne Frank House is unfurnished, making this exhibit the only way to see how the annex, which occupied two full floors, an attic space, and a loft inside the home, would have looked between 1942 and 1944.
The rooms are fully recreated and furnished to scale according to how they looked when the Franks lived there.
Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House, inside the exhibit.
John Halpern/Anne Frank The Exhibition
Anne was 13 when she moved to the Annex with her mother, Edith; her father, Otto; and her older sister, Margot, 16. Four others also lived with them: Hermann and Auguste van Pels, their 15-year-old son Peter, and Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist.
The New York City exhibition spans over 7,500 square feet of gallery space between the recreated rooms and a separate space with photographs and other artifacts.
"The recreated Annex is not just a historical space; it is a gateway to understanding the past and, crucially, learning from it," Leopold told BI.
"As we move further into the 21st century, it is imperative to find ways to engage new generations with Anne's story. While rooted in a specific historical moment, her experiences resonate far beyond her time, speaking to our shared humanity and the moral choices we all face," he continued. "This exhibition does more than remember Anne; it challenges each visitor to reflect on how history can inform our responses to hatred and injustice in our own communities today."
The Franks went into hiding in the summer of 1942 and were joined a week later by the Van Pels family.
The kitchen of the Secret Annex.
John Halpern/Anne Frank The Exhibition
The Franks, who had left Germany for Amsterdam in the 1930s, moved into the Secret Annex, as it came to be known, after Margot received a summons to report to a labor camp in Germany.
The entrance was located behind a bookcase in the back of Otto Frank's office building.
The ground floor of the office building was used as a workshop for the Pectacon company, which sold herbs and spices, and the first and second floors were used as storage and office space.
A staircase was later constructed to lead from the main house's first floor to the second floor. It opened out onto a landing where, when the Franks entered into hiding, a revolving bookcase was placed in front of a door that entered into the annex.
The annex's inhabitants lived there for two years in complete secrecy, aside from a small number of helpers who provided them with food and other supplies.
The kitchen of the Secret Annex.
John Halpern/Anne Frank The Exhibition
The families lived primarily on the second and third floors of the building, above the warehouse on the ground floor and office building on the first floor.
A few members of the office staff, known as the "helpers," knew about the people hiding in the annex and helped to conceal them from the warehouse workers and outsiders.
The annex had a kitchen, a bathroom, and rooms that could be converted into bedrooms at night.
Otto, Edith, and Margot Frank's room inside the Secret Annex.
John Halpern/Anne Frank The Exhibition
The bathroom had a sink and toilet, which the eight inhabitants shared, requiring them to take turns using them in the morning and at night.
At night, the kitchen and dining room was converted into Hermann and Auguste van Pels' bedroom.
During the day, the bedroom of Otto, Edith, and Margot Frank acted as the Frank family's living room.
Otto, Edith, and Margot Frank's room inside the Secret Annex.
John Halpern/Anne Frank The Exhibition
Space was limited inside the annex, so it was vital for the inhabitants to rely on each other for support and to share the space peacefully. In the morning, the families had to wear socks and be as quiet as possible so as not to tip off the warehouse or office workers about their movements.
The family enjoyed a quick reprieve during the weekday lunch break, when the helpers would come up to the annex for lunch and discuss the latest news from the war.
In the afternoon, the family would nap or do quiet activities like reading or writing.
A letter-writing desk was placed inside Otto, Edith, and Margot Frank's room.
John Halpern/Anne Frank The Exhibition
After the workday ended around 6 p.m., the annex inhabitants were able to move freely about the entire office building.
A standard evening inside the annex involved Otto Frank writing business letters on the typewriter and Margot and Anne doing various chores around the house. The two older women would also cook dinner for everyone in hiding using the supplies brought to them by the helpers, according to the Anne Frank House.
However, as the war raged on and access to high-quality food dwindled, food became less and less appetizing to the family, and especially to Anne.
"Blech, the mere thought that I have to eat that swill makes me nauseated," she wrote in her diary, according to the Anne Frank House.
After dinner, the families would relax by reading, conversing, or listening to the radio before transforming their living areas into bedrooms.
When the sun set, the windows would also be blacked out in order to conceal the family moving about the annex, and they would all have to be silent again.
Anne Frank shared a room with Fritz Pfeffer, who was the same age as her father.
Anne Frank and Fritz Pfeffer's room inside the annex.
John Halpern/Anne Frank The Exhibition
The pair fought over the use of the writing desk.
Anne, a spirited teenager, felt that desk time should be split evenly between herself and Pfeffer, but he disagreed.
Otto eventually intervened in the conflict over the writing desk, which Frank wrote about in her diary.
Photographs above Anne Frank's desk.
John Halpern/Anne Frank The Exhibition
"Pfeffer looked very sullen, didn't talk to me for two days and made a point of sitting at the table from 5 to 5.30 anyway... childish, of course," she wrote, according to the Anne Frank House.
Peter, the van Pels' teenage son, was the only inhabitant to have their own room in the annex.
Peter van Pels' room inside the secret annex.
John Halpern/Anne Frank The Exhibition
Much is speculated about Peter and Anne's relationship. She wrote that she wasn't very fond of him when he and his family first moved into the annex.
However, a romantic spark soon developed between the pair, who were both longing for someone to talk to about their circumstances.
She had her first kiss with him on the bed of his small room below the annex's attic.
In addition to the fully recreated annex, there are photos of the family and the war at the exhibition.
Photos along the walls inside Anne Frank The Exhibition.
John Halpern/Anne Frank The Exhibition
The exhibition includes more than 100 original collection items, from Anne Frank's first photo album to handwritten verses written by Anne Frank in her friends' poetry albums.
The exhibit is the first opportunity for the public to see what the annex would have looked like completely furnished.
Photos along the walls inside Anne Frank The Exhibition.
John Halpern/Anne Frank The Exhibition
Otto Frank, the annex's sole survivor, famously refused to refurnish the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.
"After the Anne Frank House had been restored, they asked me if I wanted to have the rooms refurnished. But I said, 'No. They took everything out during the war, and I want to keep it that way,'" he said in an interview in 1962, according to the Anne Frank House.
The executive director of the Anne Frank House says this historic exhibition is crucial today amid rising antisemitism.
A photo of Anne Frank inside the exhibition.
John Halpern/Anne Frank The Exhibition
"The exhibition provides perspectives, geared toward younger generations, that are certain to deepen our collective understanding of Anne Frank and hopefully provide a better understanding of ourselves," Leopold said in a statement.
"By bringing this exhibition to New York — a place with many ties to Anne's story — the Anne Frank House is expanding the reach of our work to encourage more people to remember Anne Frank, reflect on her life story, and respond by standing against antisemitism and hatred in their own communities."
