Anne Frank House

Eerily amazing. I had the same feeling inside that I get when I put flowers on my Grandma’s grave. Like this is closest to death you can get without actually being dead. I wanted to reach out and touch the objects that had been there some 70 years ago. The sink, the mirror, the window. Since I visited the house alone, as Alicia has been there some three times before, I opted to not be “that girl that touched everything.” Rather I would nonchalantly brush myself against the items we filed past. Goosebumps ran up and down my arms and legs. You can’t help but put yourself in the place of Anne Frank. What it was like to live in hiding, everyday worried that the sound of your footsteps or whispers would be heard by someone working below.

It can get very claustrophobic walking up the tiny staircases, crowded by other visitors on both sides. You then imagine what it was like for the family to not get to breath fresh air, or open a window, or feel like they can really stretch their legs.

I have learned about Anne Frank, and the Holocaust and read her book in school. It all seemed so surreal. Like Hitler in some time period that didn’t really exist. Like people aren’t really capable of those heinous acts or sickening thoughts. Even when I was inside the house, I felt like part of it wasn’t really. Like someone had decided, “Okay, this will be the house we SAY Anne Frank lived in. And this is the kitchen and this we will SAY is her room.” Like it was all just a show, to make us internalize that travesties the Jewish people encountered. That something like that could in reality never really happen, but an ambiguous house is decided to make us believe it did. I wish it were that way. That the walls were recently built with old pictures on them like the set of a movie. To make it look old and worn, when it is in actuality new. That the walls don’t have the history or have seen the horrors that they have.

At the same time, you gain such a sense of hope. That at least something like this would never happen again. Like we are past such capabilities of the mind. That hopefully, those held captive inside the walls never gave up hope that one day they will be free to walk as individuals again. Without the star on their shirt worn like a scarlet letter. But then you realize that there are things like this going on constantly, with and without our knowledge. Turning on CNN, I am made aware daily as to the continually and real suffering of human beings going on right now. And what do I do. I change the channel because the truth hurts. Because I am too selfish and too comfortable in my existence to give up my freedoms and responsibilities as a citizen to go and make change on someone else’s land. It makes you realize that your place on this earth is very, very small. And that only a handful of people will make an impact on other’s to such a large degree as Anne Frank did, in as short of a time span as she did.