Anne Frank’s other house
Anne Frank's secret annex is world famous, but for six decades her real home was forgotten: the second floor flat at 37, Merwedeplein in Amsterdam. Anne Frank spent nine happy childhood years there until the summer of 1942 when she and her family moved into the secret annex.
37, Merwedeplein was forgotten for sixty years: new tenants came and went and the building did not attract any special attention until almost two years ago when AVRO Television made a report about the house. Special purpose
Housing corporation, Ymere, bought the house for a special purpose: to restore it to the style it was in when the Franks lived there. The intention is then to allow writers who cannot work safely in their own countries to live there for a period of one year.Anne's new letters
Before a writer can move in, a team of experts will refurbish the flat in exactly the same style it was in in the 1930s when the Franks lived there. Vital to the restoration process, is the recently published letter by Anne to her relatives in Switzerland in which she describes all her furniture.Anne Frank's world and childhood
The TweeVandaag show was given a unique opportunity to record the restoration work at Merwedeplein.The restoration work can appropriately be called a form of modern archaeology and it provides a new and surprising insight into Anne Frank's world and childhood.Exhibition of letters
Anne's newly-published letter to her relatives is one of a whole packet of as yet unknown letters by the Frank family from the family archive. In April 2006, these letters will form part of a major exhibition about Anne Frank's life at the Amsterdam Historical Museum. The exhibition will be put together in collaboration with the Anne Frank Foundation.