Why Is There No Furniture in the Former Hiding Place of Anne Frank?

‘Why is the former hiding place unfurnished?', is one of the frequently asked questions in the Anne Frank House. Otto Frank, Anne’s father, did not want to refurnish the former hiding place. In an interview in 1962, he said: ‘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.’’ 

The Anne Frank House, in collaboration with Every media, launched the YouTube series ‘Anne Frank video diary’. This is a photo of the set that was specially built for this series, since filming on location in the original hiding place is, for various reasons, not possible. The set was made up of the main rooms of Anne's former hiding place, life-size with correct measurements and  furnished based on sources at hand, such as Anne's Diary and the scale models. Obviously Anne did not record every item in the hiding place in her diary. At times we had to make an educated guess. 

The set of the Anne Frank video diary allowed us to show you what the rooms would have looked like when Anne and the others were in hiding there. In the next photos you will first see the original room  in the actual Anne Frank House and after that what the same space looked like on set, furnished. This is the bedroom of Hermann and Auguste van Pels, which was also used as living room and kitchen for Anne and the others.

For the series a replica bookcase was built and the space was made to look like an storeroom for files and records. 

For the series and creation of the set careful research was done and duplicates found of Anne’s pictures, to ensure it looked like it was in the period 1942 - 1944. There are quite a few details we have no knowledge of, eg what their beds looked like, what kind of lamps they had. What we do know is that Anne had to add some chairs to her bed, because it became too small for her. We also know that Fritz Pfeffer, who was a dentist, had one of the helpers bring some of his equipment to the hiding place in secret, such as a dentist drill. 

While Anne and the others were in hiding there, they had to share the bathroom between the eight of them. In the evenings everything went according to a schedule, with Anne’s use of the bathroom between 9 and 9.30 pm. 

For the Anne Frank video diary, we added many items to make the place look like a living room, bedroom and kitchen. Luckily we could get some details from the scale model. 

Anne gave Peter some pictures of movie stars to make his room look a bit more cheerful. Photos made in 1954 still show a couple of these pictures, but they have since disappeared. For the series we found duplicates and pasted them on the walls. As Peter would probably have had a few more, we took an ‘educated guess’ and added some. 

For the Anne Frank video diary an attic in the city of Hoorn was found that could serve perfectly as a 'stand-in'. The attic was the place where Anne and Peter spent a lot of time and where Anne went daily to get some fresh air, longing to be free...