Inside Anne Frank's House: An Illustrated Journey Through Anne's World [Hardcover]

Hans Westra (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 18, 2004

For the 75th anniversary of Anne Frank's birth, an important publishing event - the first full-color visual book celebrating the legacy of Anne and her famous house. The photographs compiled here are in both black-and-white and color; they are vivid and moving, and make a lasting impression. The reader experiences the house and its relics, and sees photos of Anne's family and friends, the people who helped them and the changing Amstrerdam neighborhood where they lived.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Visitors to 263 Prinsengracht are taken on a journey back in time; in each of the rooms hang excerpts from Anne's diary, providing an impression of what happened there during the hiding period - and visitors can trace the lives of each of the inhabitants of the Secret Annex and the four employees of Anne's father. Inside Anne Frank's House takes readers on the same journey, following the same route that visitors make on the physical tour. The same excerpts from the diary that appear in the house are included - with the addition of background information by the museum directors and designers, the words of Anne's father, comments from some of the people who have been affected by Anne's words, and a comprehensive history of the publication of the diary.

Without a doubt this essential photographic document is a thorough, disturbing, and crucial part of the testament to faith and humanity that continues to live on as Anne Frank's legacy.

About the Author

Introduction by Hans Westra, Executive Director, the Anne Frank House.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 268 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover (November 18, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585676284
• ISBN-13: 978-1585676286
• Product Dimensions: 13 x 10.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,258,410 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most moving experience you can imagine, December 13, 2004

By 

R. Rockwell (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Inside Anne Frank's House: An Illustrated Journey Through Anne's World (Hardcover)

This book transports you to Amsterdam to the Anne Frank House which has been a museum since 1960. You take a route through photographs and documents in the same order that viewers who are lucky enough to be able to visit the museum in person. You meet Anne Frank and her family from heart rending pictures beginning with a happy family to a family in hiding to their capture and the post-war lives of those lucky enough to survive.
When I bought this book I expected to see photographs of the House but was unprepared to face their overall and cumulative impact. This book is shattering and essential.
This book although expensive belongs in the home of everone. It still costs less than a trip to Amsterdam.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Illustrated Journey, January 8, 2005

By 

Timothy Haugh (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Inside Anne Frank's House: An Illustrated Journey Through Anne's World (Hardcover)

I have long been interested in the story of Anne Frank. Over the years I have read many books about her and I continue to reread the diary every year. Recently, this book came to my attention and I gave it a read. There is much about it that impresses.

This book is subtitled An Illustrated Journey Through Anne's World and that seems appropriate. The key attraction of the book are the hundreds of photos that fill its pages, many of which I had never seen before. With its oversize, coffee table book format, and slick pages, it is a beautiful thing to look at. Where the book begins to let the reader down is the text.

Granted, the text is minimal and what there is can be highly informative and descriptive; however, I noticed a number of typos in my edition and many of the pictures were mislabeled (if the label could be found at all). It also seemed like different people were in charge of different sections of the book because there was no consistency to the presentation. I actually liked the structure of the first section of the book, where German history ran in small pictures along the bottom of the pages and the Frank family filled the top. I wish this style would have continued because it was very informative and allowed the reader to make connections but this was dropped rather quickly.

Still, there is a lot to be said for this book. It's cliche that a picture says a thousand words but it is amazing the emotion that is captured in some of these shots, particularly if you know the story behind them.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We Remember, If Only We Would Learn, December 14, 2004

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Inside Anne Frank's House: An Illustrated Journey Through Anne's World (Hardcover)

It's an ordinary house, not spectacular at all. It wouldn't be worth photographing at all except for the extraordinary young lady who lived here and who kept a diary during one of those times when the devil was loose on the earth and good men did nothing to stop him.

But because of this young lady and her extraordinary diary this house is a monument, a church if you will, that commemorates not just this girl but all of those who went with her, and all of those who tried to help them.

The book itself is beautifully done, not only a photographic guide but a history, a memorial in its own right with quotations and photographs of objects displayed in the actual exhibition. ==Let us never forget!

Let us also remember the other holocausts that followed to prove that we didn't learn enough: Rwands, Cambodia, Ethnic Cleansing in former Yugoslavia, and what may happen in Iraq between the Sunni, Shiite, and Kurds.