The house on Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam is the place where Anne Frank lived in hiding with her sister Margot and her parents Otto and Edith Frank. They lived here from July 5, 1942 until they were found by the Germans through the help of a Dutch informant on August 4, 1944. They were sent to the concentration camp Westerbork, later to Auswitch and finally Bergen-Belsen, where Anne Frank died with her sister Margot in April 1945 - Anne was 15 when she died from Typhus. The father Otto Frank was the only one of the 8 in the hideout that survived the Holocaust.
Anne Frank was born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt am Main in Germany. When the Nazi Party took power in Germany in 1933, Anne's father Otto Frank moved his business and his family to Amsterdam in Holland, where they moved into a house on Merwedeplein. The house on Prinsengracht was the business office of Anne Frank's father, who began building a hideout in the annex of the house a few months after the invasion of Holland. There were also 3 members of the Van Pels family and an older dentist called Fritz Pfeffer living in the hideout. Former employees in the Otto Frank business accepted the great personal risk of bringing regular supplies and news to the hideout.
When Anne Frank turned 13, she got a dairy as birthday present, which she named "Kitty". She confided her most personal thoughs and feelings to the diary, and when she moved into the hideout, the dairy was brought along. The experiences and anxiety of the stay in the hideout until the capture were faithfully written in her diary, giving us a very personal and touching view into the life of Anne and the other 7 in the hideout.
When the SS men who searched the hideout after the capture of its inhabitants, they took all the jewelry and valuables but emptied a box containing Anne Frank's Diary out on the floor and left it there. One of the people who had helped bringing food to the hideout, Miep Gies, found the diary on the floor and hid it till after the war, when it was given to Anne's father, Otto Frank.
Kitty, Anne Frank's diary, was published after Otto Frank was persuaded to allow this, and it has become a moving testament to a young girl who did her best to survive Nazi persecution. The diary, Anne Frank's Diary, has been sold in more than 25 million copies, and the income goes to a Christian charity foundation.
The Anne Frank Museum is just next to the Anne Frank House, a bit closer to the Westerkerk Church.
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