Anne Frank statue (Merwedeplein)

A girl looking back at her home

Most people who come to Amsterdam for Anne Frank go to the canal house on the Prinsengracht. Far fewer come here, to Merwedeplein, a quiet residential square south of the centre. This is where she lived before the family went into hiding. The statue stands in front of the building.

The bronze shows Anne as a young girl with her bags, caught in the act of glancing back. It is small and easy to walk past. Give it a few minutes. It is one of the few places in the city where you meet her as a child leaving home, not as a name in a museum queue.

The morning of 6 July 1942

The statue shows one exact moment. On Monday morning, 6 July 1942, Anne looked back one last time at her parents' home at Merwedeplein 37-II. She then left with her parents, Otto Frank and Edith Frank-Holländer, for the hiding place at Prinsengracht 263. Her sister Margot had already gone ahead that morning with the helper Miep Gies.

Among the things Anne carried was the red-checked diary. She had received it on 12 June 1942, for her thirteenth birthday. Through that diary she became, around the world, a symbol of the victims of the Holocaust. She died at the age of fifteen.

It took a long time for her to be remembered here. The sculptor Jet Schepp made the statue in 1994 and meant it for Merwedeplein, but the city council of the time did not support the idea. So it was placed in Purmerend in 1996 instead. In 2004 a local bookshop started a petition to bring an enlarged version to the square where Anne had lived. It worked. A year later the statue was unveiled on Merwedeplein, with mayor Job Cohen present. A replica was placed in Buenos Aires in December 2014, at the initiative of the Dutch embassy in Argentina and the Argentine ministry of education.

What to look for

Stand where Anne stands and look in the direction she is looking. The statue faces the house, and that is the point. Notice how she is dressed for travel, with her bags. Notice, too, how ordinary the square is around her: front doors, bicycles, residents going about their day.

The building behind is a home where people live today. Take your photo from the pavement, keep your voice low, and do not ring bells or look in at windows.