Anne Frank’s ‘other’ home, where she started her diary, gets new owner

DutchNews, April 20, 2016

Photo: Maksim via Wikimedia Commons

Amsterdam’s Anne Frank Foundation is negotiating to buy the flat where Anne and her family lived prior to going into hiding during World War II. 

The second floor flat at 37 Merwedeplein was home to the Franks from 1933 until July 1942, when they moved to the secret annex on Amsterdam’s Prinsengracht canal. 

Anne began writing her famous diary at the flat in the south of the city after she received it on her 13th birthday. 

The foundation and housing corporation Ymere have now reached a deal on the sale. Ymere bought the property in 2004 and restored it to its original style. It has been rented to the Dutch Foundation for Literature since 2005 and lived in by writers who are not free to pursue their craft in their own countries.

‘We want the ideals of Anne Frank to be preserved, but as a housing corporation we don’t see this as our role in society. We are glad to leave this to the Anne Frank House, in whom we have found an outstanding takeover partner,’ said Ymere board member Eric van Kaam in a statement. 

The foundation plans to retain the flat’s use as a refuge for foreign writers, stating it is a place devoted to freedom, tolerance and freedom of expression.  ‘We would like to see how we can do greater justice to the general historical importance of the home without detracting from its current use as a residence for overseas writers,’ foundation spokesman Ronald Leopold said. 

The foundation runs the secret annex where Anne lived until she and her family were captured and deported shortly before the end of the war. 

The only known film of Anne shows her leaning out of a window on the Merwedeplein  to watch a wedding party.