Amsterdam Day 2

By: Ava
One activity for today, was visiting the Anne Frank museum. This activity was a learning experience that engaged us. Because I and several delegates had read Anne's Diary, seeing the annex for ourselves was intriguing. When we first arrived at the museum we received a brief overview of the events leading up to and after Anne's time in the Annex. Once you go through the actual exhibit, Anne's story and point of view is more in depth. You are are first led to the office part of the building of where Otto Frank, (Anne's Father ) work place. You learn about his employees and coworkers that helped keep the eight safe. Miep Gies was one of them who contributed many items/photos to the museum and who also kept Anne's dairy safe after she was take to a concentration camp. Next you walk though the Annex and view videos and items that are important to the room. There are also excerpts from Anne's diary on the walls. These show not only physical hardships of close quarters and limited resources, but how fast Anne had to mature. Once you exit the Annex, you walk into a room about concentration camps. This includes a list of those sent to them and the highlighted names of those in the Annex. A video was also shown of one of Anne's friends telling a story of life in the concentration camp and how they sent each other gifts. Then you walk into a room that shows you diary pages of Anne's and how it got published. There was also copies of Anne's diary in different languages to show the enormity of the influence she has had. Finally in another part the museum shows current events and how racism and discrimination goes on today. It is very interactive because it gives you both side to numerous arguments and then you vote on which side you support. For example, one argument was whether religious symbols shield be worn or placed in public. After voting you would be shown the percent of people who voted for each side. The Anne frank museum was a very providing and interesting end to our second day in Amsterdam.