"It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more." Anne Frank
Had the opportunity to visit the Anne Frank House, or Huis, yesterday. I feel there is not much to write about as I think the experience there can be inferred without ever actually being there. However, I will say that the way the "house" was displayed (in accordance with Otto Frank's wishes) was powerful. The rooms of the house are stark...empty with only a few key artifacts in cases that deliver stories from each of the rooms. The lighting in each room was kept similar to the way in which it was for the eight that hid there. Quotations dotted the walls - mostly experts from the Diary. A few video interviews were interspersed as well and, at the end, a memorial to the eight, with concentration camp logs of their names marked over with pen. Only one survived, Otto, and he ends the tour of the house with an interview he gave years after the ordeal.
It actually came up in the class today as we addressed the question of who we are as art directors and how we communicate ourselves to the masses. Otto reflected on Anne saying, "For me, it was a revelation. There, was revealed a completely different Anne to the child that I had lost. I had no idea of the depths of her thoughts and feelings.” He goes on to say that in this way, he believes most parents do not know anything about their children. It is an interesting thought... as parents can never penetrate their childrens' minds. They never really know exactly what he or she is truly thinking. A diary, someone's personal chronicle, is perhaps the closest one can come to someone's innermost thoughts. Although they spent two years in crammed quarters and isolation, hiding as a family from the Nazis, Otto's read of Anne's diary was "a revelation."
The actual diaries are displayed at the end which outline her dream of becoming a writer. Dozens of editions of her diary are also displayed, all in different languages, realizing that dream.
Downstairs on the way out of the museum, there is a separate theater that displays different viewpoints on the idea of democracy and the boundaries of freedom. "Free 2 Choose", it was called, and it basically presents short films with two opposing viewpoints in which the audience can vote at the end. Thought it a cool, appropriate interactive element to the experience...
Oh, and in case you didn't know, their hiding place was never discovered by the Nazis, it was compromised. Someone tipped them off. And that person is surely in hell.
