Anne Frank. Ronald Wilfred Jansen
were consulted during the course of writing this book. Since the book is being financed by private funds, it does not include any photographs of Anne purchased from stock agencies or elsewhere. 13 Ad Tiggeler 14 allowed me to use his collection of old postcards to illustrate this book. It contains excellent images, some 1 less well-known, including photographs of De Wolkenkrabber (‘The Skyscraper’, a block of flats looking out on Merwedeplein, Amsterdam). My gratitude also goes out to Jos Wiersema, who allowed me to use historical photographs from his collection 15; images that go beyond the usual pictures.
Some materials from the photo book have been reused in this publication, supplemented by current photos of a number of places Anne visited, which I learnt of in 2010 and 2011 and had overlooked when making the photo book.
Anne maintained a scrapbook with photographs. Some of the places depicted in these photographs have not been identified exactly, even if they show Anne in front of a clearly recognisable background. Following the war, so much attention went to publishing The Diaries that not all old pictures were researched adequately with regard to their origin. The bitter fruits of this are now being harvested: the location of some of the buildings can no longer be established with certainty. Fortunately, however, I was able to recognise some of the places in these photographs when I was physically tracing Anne’s footsteps.
For other photographs, however, I have not been able to establish location. One black-and-white photograph 16 shows an informal yet slightly uneasy gathering of three teenagers looking into the camera. Both boys are wearing neat suits that are in sharp contrast with their decrepit environment of bare vegetable gardens and unpainted sheds.
The youngest boy is wearing clogs. A girl in a light dress gives the photographer a rather surly look whilst pulling one of the cords on her cardigan. This girl is Anne. The two boys standing next to Anne are Herbert Wilp (1928-2002, hereafter referred to as Herbert) and Hermann Wilp (1925-1945, hereafter referred to as Hermann), who came from Neuwied near Koblenz. Following the Kristallnacht 17, Herbert and Hermann fled to Amsterdam. It is unknown where this picture was taken or what relationship existed between Anne and these boys.
Prior to travelling across Anne’s locations, I studied the relevant literature in order to garner insight into what has been written about 1 Anne and where she stayed. Many books have been written about Anne. Melissa Müller’s biography is well-structured and contains a wealth of background information on Anne. 18 The level of other writings differs greatly 19, with practically all writers elaborating on others’ themes.
The biography by Carol Ann Lee (hereafter referred to as Carol) contains several mistakes. 20 A meticulous description of Amsterdam locations reminiscent of Anne may be found in Bob Polak’s book Naar buiten, lucht en lachen! Een literaire wandeling door het Amsterdam van Anne Frank [Outside: fresh air and laughter! A literary walk through Anne Frank’s Amsterdam] (Amsterdam, 2006). His book was of great use to me. My book also contains information published before, supplemented by new facts about Anne’s places of residence and presented from a new perspective.
The Letters 21 and The Diaries 22 Anne wrote are the main primary sources for reconstructing Anne’s day-to-day environment, and are influenced by the opinions and interpretations of Anne, who, in turn, was influenced by her upbringing, environment and the spirit of her time. There is no information on how the others experienced the hiding: with the exception of Otto Frank (1889-1980, hereafter referred to as Otto), none survived the extermination camps. In spite of the chaotic circumstances in the Secret Annex during the fatal raid on August 4, 1944, excerpts of Anne’s diaries remained intact. Many of the letters Anne wrote whilst living at Merwedeplein have undoubtedly been lost.
Margot kept a diary in the Annex 23 that most probably also has been lost, or perhaps Margot’s diary is still hidden somewhere under the floorboards of the building at 263 Prinsengracht, in an old forgotten attic or orphaned in an archive that has escaped inventory. Who knows? New information about Anne still occasionally crops up from hidden places. In 2008, one of Anne’s postcards turned up in a gift shop in Naarden, the Netherlands 24, along with a picture of a former admirer. 25 The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research 26 discovered some 1 letters by Otto, revealing that he wanted to flee the Netherlands with his family.
The period from December 6, 1942 up to December 22, 1943 27 is absent from the A version of The Diaries. The A version is the first version of The Diaries; the B version is the version rewritten by Anne herself, which she planned to publish in the form of a novel after the end of the war. The B version was never completed, probably because Anne was arrested, and ends on March 29, 1944. I prefer to take the A version, written by Anne between June 12, 1942 and August 1, 1944 as a point of reference because it is the uncensored version in which Anne wrote down her thoughts unreservedly and without consideration of her audience. In some places, the B version contains information that is lacking in the A version.
Otto contributed to a C version of The Diaries: The 1947 Dutch edition of Het Achterhuis [The Secret Annex], published by Contact, from which certain sensitive passages were removed by Otto 28. The academic publication of The Diaries 29, meant to scientifically refute the accusations by far-right extremists who claim The Diaries to be a forgery 30, contains sensitive extracts written by Anne, which Otto had systematically kept out of previous publications.
A booklet containing difficult words that Anne wrote down 31 and the card catalogue of books 32 kept by Anne and Margot have not been found. An accounts book in which Anne noted down texts that appealed to her whilst she was in hiding has been preserved: the Mooie Zinnenboek , her Book of Beautiful Sentences (Amsterdam, 2004). (Please refer to the Bibliography section, Translator’s Note, for more information on English editions and translations of titles in the). Some separate notes from the Secret Annex by Anne were preserved, and she also wrote stories, and in 1944 worked on a novel whilst hiding in the Annex. These were published in Dutch as Verhaaltjes, en gebeurtenissen uit het Achterhuis. Met de roman in wording Cady’s leven (Amsterdam, 2005), and in English as Tales from the Secret Annex. Including her Unfinished Novel Cady’s Live (Halban Publishers, 2010). The stories this book contains are partly anecdotes from the Annex, partly made-up fairytales and partly derived from 1 memories of the Jewish grammar school she attended, the Joods Lyceum. Both her stories and her prospective novel contain autobiographical elements: ‘It isn’t sentimental nonsense for it’s modelled on the story of Daddy’s life.’ 33 Anne does not elaborately describe her residential environment in her writings, presumably because it was a given to her—just like it is a given for us that we are free to walk down the street. One only notices that something is missing when it is gone. It was the same for Anne. During her period in hiding, she became more aware of the value of nature, fresh air and having some elbow room, and she described the chestnut tree, the birds and the sky above Amsterdam. Comparably, Anne did not write about her residential environments in Aachen and Frankfurt in any detail; she lived there only very briefly, and may not have remembered much about those places of her early childhood. During her hiding period, Anne mainly felt Dutch and probably did not feel any need to be reminded of her native country.
I was unable to obtain permission to consult the Frank family archives. I am unsure as to whether this would have proven useful; the exhibition Anne Frank—Her Life in Letters in the Amsterdam Museum in 2006 34 did not lead to new insights into Anne and her places of residence. Moreover, some other authors have already conducted extensive research in the Anne Frank Stichting archives.
I was unable to find specific sources, such as postcards or letters, Anne may have written in one of the concentration camps. She may have been prevented from writing—or perhaps she came to lack the strength. Many of the materials from the camps in which Anne stayed have been lost to posterity, meaning that her life in the camps can only reconstructed through the eyewitness accounts of others.
I sought contact with people who (superficially) knew Anne and who were able to tell me about locations she had visited but did not mention in her writings. Whilst travelling along Anne’s locations generally went fine, the contact with her former friends