The Video Diary of Anne Frank: The Museum has started a vlog retelling Anne's life in the secret Annex. Photo / Supplied, Anne Frank House, Ray van der Bas
The Video Diary of Anne Frank: The Museum has started a vlog retelling Anne's life in the secret Annex. Photo / Supplied, Anne Frank House, Ray van der Bas
What would have happened if Anne Frank had been gifted a camcorder for her 13th birthday, instead of a diary?
A new, online series by the Anne Frank Museum might be the closest thing to finding out.
The teen diarist who hid with her Jewish family in Nazi occupied Holland during the Second World War made one of the most moving and celebrated accounts of those who went into hiding to escape persecution. Her diary of an ordinary girl in extraordinary circumstances has an unguarded honesty. In spite of the time period and the horrors that faced her family, it has a very relatable and everyday quality - as told from her eyes.
The diary of Anne Frank is being retold for the YouTube generation. Photo / Supplied, Screengrab
It is this honesty which the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam recognised in the online journals of today's young vloggers, recording from home. In order to retell Anne Frank's story for today's YouTube generation and to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Holland, the museum has published a series of daily videos filmed from the perspective on Anne.
75 years after Anne's discovery and death in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, 30 million copies of her story have been published in 67 languages, including Dutch.
Anne Frank's Diary: Anne was given the diary as a birthday present. Photo / Supplied, Anne Frank House Museum
However the Anne Frank Video Diary adds a new dimension to a story, you think you know.
The realities of living in the same space with other families, unable to leave, is seen by the claustrophobic vlogger's camera. As is the awkwardness of sharing rooms with a 55-year old dentist Fritz Pfeffe.
The 15-year-old Luna Cruz Perez who plays Anne captures this all perfectly.
"We are leaving tomorrow, and I don't know what's going to happen," she tells the camera. "It's nice to have someone to talk to about this."
Saying goodbye to Moortje the cat, the handheld camera is something that wouldn't be out of place on another YouTuber or Instagram video. Though - of course - unconnected to the outside world beyond a wireless radio set, Anne Frank would not have been able to turn to social media. Had it been invented.
Anne's was diary written over a period of two years in a series of hidden rooms in what is now the Anne Frank House museum. The museum is currently closed due to the Netherlands's response to the Coronavirus crisis. So the timing of launching the web-series has been fortuitous – allowing the museum to keep on reaching an international audience.
The videos have reached 1.5 million views, with a new episode each day.
The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam is currently closed to the public due to the Coronavirus crisis. Photo / Supplied
The younger audience were quick to point out similarities between "being in quarantine" and the claustrophobic Achterhuis. Visitors from the Philippines, Brazil and Holland have all been making comparisons.
However, Annemarie Bekker of the museum says that while people can sympathise, they should be careful about any similarities:
"Anne Frank had to go into hiding for the sole reason that she was Jewish; her persecution, life in hiding, and eventual death were the result of deliberate human actions," she said.
