Replica of Anne Frank’s hiding place will go on display in New York in January

An Amsterdam-based museum dedicated to Anne Frank has announced that an exhibition featuring a full-scale reproduction of her hiding place will open in New York next January.

The announcement comes as anti-Semitic harassment has increased in the United States since the conflict between Israel and the Islamic organization Hamas broke out in October last year.

The Jewish teenager was trying to escape Nazi persecution by hiding with his family in a secret annex in Amsterdam during World War II. They were discovered by the Gestapo, the German secret police, in 1944. The following year, at the age of 15, Anne died in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp in Germany.

Her diary, commonly known as “The Diary of Anne Frank,” was published posthumously.

The Anne Frank House museum, dedicated to the diarist, said the first such recreation would be displayed in January next year to mark the 80th US commemoration of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

The museum said it is currently preparing a bookcase that is used, among other things, to hide the entrance and the bed used by Anne. He said he used about 800 photographs of the hideout and descriptions from the diary.

Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House, said that in the context of current world events, he thought the story of Anne Frank was not a story of the past.

“This is also a call to action for all of us,” he said, adding: “It speaks to our shared responsibility to stand against anti-Semitism, all forms of discrimination, against group hatred and to work for a better world.”