Anne Frank
House VR
Charlotte Bosman (AFH) / Paweł Sawicki
The real Secret Annex is empty. The furniture was removed by order of the Nazis after the arrest of the eight people in hiding. It was the wish of Otto Frank, Anne's father, to leave the rooms of the Secret Annex empty. Otto Frank was the only one of the eight to survive the war. After his return from Auschwitz he devoted himself to the publication of his daughter's diary and the preservation of the Secret Annex and its opening to the public.
“The VR tour gives people all around the world the opportunity to explore Anne Frank's hiding place as it was in July 1942 to August 1944, the period when Anne Frank was forced into hiding and wrote her diary. The tour offers an immersive experience,” said Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House.
The VR tour has been installed at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam to enable visitors with restricted mobility to see the Secret Annex, as it was in the hiding period, with other sites including the Anne Frank Zentrum in Berlin and Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect in New York rolling it out later this year – giving more people around the world an opportunity to see for themselves what the space would have looked and felt like.
The tour lasts for around 25 minutes, is available in seven languages and can be downloaded free of charge from the Oculus Store.
On Anne Frank's 89th birthday, June 12, 2018, the Anne Frank House, Force Field VR and Oculus launched a virtual reality tour of Anne Frank's hiding place: Anne Frank House VR.
All images: Anne Frank House Virtual Reality