The Annex

A model of the 3rd floor

When the thirteen-year-old and her family went into hiding from the Nazis, who were victimizing and arresting Jews, the diary went with her. She called it “Kitty,” and for the two years she spent in hiding, the diary was her solace, her confidant, her friend. What she recorded there were, in many ways, the ordinary thoughts and feelings of a teenage girl. But she was a teenage girl living under extraordinary circumstances in ominous times.

The closed bookcase
and the bookcase opened

Here you find an excellent CAD Model of the secret Annex by Michael Bloomenfeld, The Art Engineering Company.

Eight people eventually came to live in the secret annex. There were the four members of the Frank family, Otto Frank, Edith Frank, Margot and Anne, three from the Van Pels family, Herman and Auguste Van Pels and their son Peter, and an elderly dentist named Fritz Pfeffer.

Anne used some fictitious names when she wrote in her diary. The van Daans were Hermann, Auguste, and Peter van Pels. Mr. Dussel was Fritz Pfeffer.

Life in the annex settled down to a monotonous routine. They woke at 06:45a.m. and by 08:30 they all had to be quiet as work began in the warehouse beneath them. Breakfast at 09:00 and after breakfast all movement was kept to an absolute minimum until 12:30 when the warehouse closed for lunch.

At this time, the inhabitants of the annex had lunch and listened to the BBC. At 14:00 the warehouse reponed and there was silence once again. Between 14:00pm and 17:30 time was spent resting or reading. When the warehouse closed at 17:30 everyone could move around again. At 21:00 preperations were made to go to bed.

At weekends the routine varied, with no welcomed visitors from downstairs and even more need to keep quiet to avoid attracting the slightest attention to what supposed to be an empty building.