WALKING THROUGH ANNE FRANK'S HOUSE – Remodeled into a museum.

The highlight of our walking tour in Amsterdam was a visit to Anne Frank's house—built in 1635, on Prinsengract 265 – 267. Anne Frank, a German Jew, was a famous deportee to the concentration camps. History records show that in 1940, Anne's father, Otto Frank, used the building as offices for the spice and gelling companies he worked for. Concealed from view was a rear extension of the building. There, Otto, his wife, his two daughters, and four other Jewish friends hid during the Nazi persecution. They hid there for two years and one month, until somebody—still unknown today—reported the hiding place to the Nazi authorities. They arrested Otto, his family and friends, and sent them to concentration camps where they, except Otto, all died.

The present house itself has a history of its own. According to history, Otto survived and returned to Amsterdam. The person who found Anne's diary in the house gave the diary to Otto, who then published it. People who read it began to show interest in the story and flocked to the house to see the hiding place. In 1955, a company bought the entire block where the house sat and scheduled a demolition. In the meantime, while the company contemplated over the demolition, Otto Frank and a friend set up a Foundation with the aim of raising funds to purchase and restore the building. When people who took interest in Anne Fran's story knew about the sale and demolition of the property, they held a protest in front of the house. With the help of the protesters and his friends, Otto succeeded in preventing the demolition; and the company who owned the entire block ended up donating the building to the Foundation "as a goodwill gesture." In 1960, the house became a museum receiving as many as 1,002,902 visitors as of 2007.

Our group went through all the floors and rooms. We saw the room where they hid and the bookcase that covered the entrance to it. Here, Anne Frank wrote her well-known diary. It was so spine chilling, thinking that I was in the house, in the rooms, and walking through the place where a sad history happened.