Last year there was justified dismay at a conspiracy theory projected on the Anne Frank House, which suggested she had not written her diary herself. The diary contained loose pages that were written on with ballpoint pen and that invention was not yet available during the Second World War. The fact that those leaves were left by a researcher after the war did not fit into that conspiracy theory.
Fortunately, serious research is also being done into the diary, which, in addition to a diary, consists of a number of notebooks and loose leaves.
Material-technical research into the scriptures has been conducted since 2021 and that research serves two purposes, presenter Hila Noorzai explained in the first episode of the four-part documentary series Closer to Anne Frank. Firstly, it should provide insight into Anne’s writing method; In addition, research is being done into how the papers can best be preserved and exhibited at the same time. During that research, everything Anne has written will also be digitized, so that it can also be preserved in that way.
The most remarkable thing was that exact copies were made of everything Anne Frank wrote: the facsimile of the famous red-and-white checked diary that she received for her 13th birthday contains exactly the same deletions, photos and pasted-in pages.
Tom Brink, head of collections at the Anne Frank Foundation, proudly showed the copy to Noorzai, but it made her uncomfortable: “It feels much more private than the book, because this is her handwriting. It’s like getting a glimpse into someone’s life.”
The originals may only be touched by researchers and only one person has had that privilege over the past 20 years: restorer Elizabet Nijhoff Asser of the Anne Frank Foundation. “It’s always a goosebump moment when you touch them. They are handwritten by a girl who has not yet turned 16 because she was murdered – and you continue to feel that vulnerability.”
That’s why it’s good that the series Closer to Anne Frank not only shows the scientific side of the research, but also repeats the tragic history of the Frank family and all other Amsterdam and Dutch Jews.
For example, Noorzai visits the last official home of the Frank family on Merwedeplein in Amsterdam’s Rivierenbuurt. The need to continue telling these stories, especially in these times, was once again proven last year by the not only disrespectful but also factually incorrect extreme right-wing projection on the Anne Frank House.
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