Visited the Anne Frank House today. Had to do a separate post for this one. Photos are not allowed inside. I am an emotional person who feels things deeply, and neither David nor my son will be surprised to know that it was very hard for me to keep from crying in here. It’s one thing to read the diary and to know, it’s another to be in the space. It didn’t help that it occurred to me that Anne looked EXACTLY like a former student of mine (minus my student’s bright red hair). Or that I wondered if the train tracks I’ve been riding daily were the same ones used to transport men, women, and children to a final horrific ending. Or that names on the transport lists matched the surnames of people dear to me. I cannot imagine the terrible, terrible pain of having your children separated from you and have no idea where they are being sent, how they will be treated, having no way to indulge that most primal drive of protecting your beloved, precious treasures.
People are still fleeing political violence and genocide today. Can we see it the same way? Are are we too close to it to recognize it? What regrets will we have in a decade looking back?
Link to the virtual tour…there is actually no furniture, only in the virtual tour, because Otto Frank wanted it left unfurnished the way it was after they were removed and it was cleaned out.
Life to the Point of Tears 