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Tickets Sold Out Through March for First Full-Scale Replica of Anne Frank’s Hidden Annex in NYC
Inside “Anne Frank The Exhibition” in New York City. Photo: John Halpern
The first full-scale recreation of the secret annex where Anne Frank hid for two years from Nazis occupying The Netherlands during World War II opened for its world premiere in New York City a week ago to such success that tickets are sold out for two months, organizers told The Algemeiner on Monday.
“We’ve been sold out every day and we are now sold out through March, which is wonderful,” said Michael Glickman, who is the New York representative for the Anne Frank House and the former director of the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan. “The response has been overwhelmingly positive [from] both adults, students, and everyone in between.” He added that the exhibit has already had more than 10,000 visitors in just its first week.
“Anne Frank The Exhibition” is being hosted at the Center for Jewish History, which houses the world’s largest Jewish archive outside of Israel, and is a collaboration with the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam. It opened on International Holocaust Remembrance Day last Monday and is scheduled to close on April 30.
The first of its kind, the recreation of the annex is meant to be a limited release exhibit that will travel to other cities in the country, Glickman said. The immersive exhibit also marks the first time that the annex has been completely recreated outside of Amsterdam, and the first time that dozens of artifacts will be seen in the United States — many of which have never been displayed publicly.
Thirteen-year-old Frank, her parents, older sister, and four other Jews hid in the annex to evade Nazi capture in Amsterdam starting in 1942 until they were discovered and arrested in 1944. The annex is also where Frank penned her famous Holocaust diary while hiding in rooms located in the back house of her father’s company in Amsterdam. When Frank and the others were arrested in 1944, she was first transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, and then with her sister they were sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, where they both died of typhus in February 1945. Frank was 15 and her sister was 18 or 19.
The Anne Frank House assembled a team of fabricators, designers, and builders to reconstruct in New York City the five rooms where Frank, her family, and others lived in hiding during the Holocaust. The rooms are filled with furniture and personal possessions, including Frank’s first photo album from 1929-1942; her typed and handwritten invitation to her friend for a film screening in her home; and poetry handwritten by Frank in her friends’ poetry albums. Also on display is the Oscar won by Shelley Winters for the 1959 film “The Diary of Anne Frank.”
The exhibit spans more than 7,500 square feet and features over 100 original artifacts from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. A large chunk of the reconstructed annex was made in The Netherlands and shipped over to New York City on freight liners, according to Glickman. “This exhibit came together in record time,” he added. “I’ve been doing these sort of things for a very long time in my career [and] I’ve never seen anything happen as fast. From start to finish, this was a 10-month process.”
Frank’s father, Otto Frank, has a personal connection to New York. He worked in New York City from 1909-1911, before he met and married his wife, Edith. Otto’s roommate at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, Nathan Straus, Jr., invited him to come to New York and work at his family’s department store, Macy’s. Otto worked for about six months as an intern at Macy’s and afterwards worked as an intern at a bank until he left New York in the spring of 1911. The former university roommates maintained contact after Otto returned to Europe.
Years later, Nathan tried to help Otto and his family secure visas to the United States to escape Nazi-occupied Europe, but was unsuccessful. Otto was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust. After World War II, when he returned to Amsterdam, his former assistant, Miep Gies, gave him Anne’s diary. She had retrieved it from the annex after the Frank family was arrested, hoping to give it to Anne one day. Otto published his daughter’s diary — Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl — first in Dutch, German, and French, and it has since become one of the most translated books in the world. Otto died in 1980 at the age of 91.
The Anne Frank House, an independent nonprofit organization, was established in 1957, in cooperation with Otto. For nearly seven decades, it has preserved the annex where the Frank family hid during World War II.
“Anne’s legacy is remarkable, as represented in the diary she left us, and as one of the 1.5 million Jewish children who were murdered at the hands of Nazi officials and their collaborators,” Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House, said in a released statement. “Through this exhibition, the Anne Frank House offers insights into how this could have happened and what it means for us today. The exhibition provides perspectives, geared toward younger generations, that are certain to deepen our collective understanding of Anne Frank and hopefully provide a better understanding of ourselves.”
“By bringing this exhibition to New York — a place with many ties to Anne’s story— the Anne Frank House is expanding the reach of our work to encourage more people to remember Anne Frank, reflect on her life story, and respond by standing against antisemitism and hatred in their own communities,” he added.
“In a time of rising antisemitism, her diary serves as both a warning and a call to action, reminding us of the devastating impact of hatred,” said Dr. Gavriel Rosenfeld, president of the Center for Jewish History. “This exhibition challenges us to confront these dangers head-on and honor the memory of those lost in the Holocaust.”
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Trump Says Iran Must Give Up Dream of Nuclear Weapon or Face Harsh Response
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
President Donald Trump said on Monday he believes Iran is intentionally delaying a nuclear deal with the United States and that it must abandon any drive for a nuclear weapon or face a possible military strike on Tehran’s atomic facilities.
“I think they’re tapping us along,” Trump told reporters after US special envoy Steve Witkoff met in Oman on Saturday with a senior Iranian official.
Both Iran and the United States said on Saturday that they held “positive” and “constructive” talks in Oman. A second round is scheduled for Saturday, and a source briefed on the planning said the meeting was likely to be held in Rome.
The source, speaking to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said the discussions are aimed at exploring what is possible, including a broad framework of what a potential deal would look like.
“Iran has to get rid of the concept of a nuclear weapon. They cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
Asked if US options for a response include a military strike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities, Trump said: “Of course it does.”
Trump said the Iranians need to move fast to avoid a harsh response because “they’re fairly close” to developing a nuclear weapon.
The US and Iran held indirect talks during former President Joe Biden’s term but they made little, if any progress. The last known direct negotiations between the two governments were under then-President Barack Obama, who spearheaded the 2015 international nuclear deal that Trump later abandoned.
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No Breakthrough in Gaza Talks, Egyptian and Palestinian Sources Say
Families and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas gather to demand a deal that will bring back all the hostages held in Gaza, outside a meeting between hostage representatives and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem, Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
The latest round of talks in Cairo to restore the defunct Gaza ceasefire and free Israeli hostages ended with no apparent breakthrough, Palestinian and Egyptian sources said on Monday.
The sources said Hamas had stuck to its position that any agreement must lead to an end to the war in Gaza.
Israel, which restarted its military campaign in Gaza last month after a ceasefire agreed in January unraveled, has said it will not end the war until Hamas is stamped out. The terrorist group has ruled out any proposal that it lay down its arms.
But despite that fundamental disagreement, the sources said a Hamas delegation led by the group’s Gaza Chief Khalil Al-Hayya had shown some flexibility over how many hostages it could free in return for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel should a truce be extended.
An Egyptian source told Reuters the latest proposal to extend the truce would see Hamas free an increased number of hostages. Israeli minister Zeev Elkin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, told Army Radio on Monday that Israel was seeking the release of around 10 hostages, raised from previous Hamas consent to free five.
Hamas has asked for more time to respond to the latest proposal, the Egyptian source said.
“Hamas has no problem, but it wants guarantees Israel agrees to begin the talks on the second phase of the ceasefire agreement” leading to an end to the war, the Egyptian source said.
AIRSTRIKES
Hamas terrorists freed 33 Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinian detainees during the six-week first phase of the ceasefire which began in January. But the second phase, which was meant to begin at the start of March and lead to the end of the war, was never launched.
Meanwhile, 59 Israeli hostages remain in the hands of the terrorists. Israel believes up to 24 of them are alive.
Palestinians say the wave of Israeli attacks since the collapse of the ceasefire has been among the deadliest and most intense of the war, hitting an exhausted population surviving in the enclave’s ruins.
In Jabalia, a community on Gaza’s northern edge, rescue workers in orange vests were trying to smash through concrete with a sledgehammer to recover bodies buried underneath a building that collapsed in an Israeli strike.
Feet and a hand of one person could be seen under a concrete slab. Men carried a body wrapped in a blanket. Workers at the scene said as many as 25 people had been killed.
The Israeli military said it had struck there against terrorists planning an ambush.
In Khan Younis in the south, a camp of makeshift tents had been shredded into piles of debris by an airstrike. Families had returned to poke through the rubbish in search of belongings.
“We used to live in houses. They were destroyed. Now, our tents have been destroyed too. We don’t know where to stay,” said Ismail al-Raqab, who returned to the area after his family fled the raid before dawn.
EGYPT’S SISI MEETS QATARI EMIR
The leaders of the two Arab countries that have led the ceasefire mediation efforts, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, met in Doha on Sunday. The Egyptian source said Sisi had called for additional international guarantees for a truce agreement, beyond those provided by Egypt and Qatar themselves.
US President Donald Trump, who has backed Israel’s decision to resume its campaign and called for the Palestinian population of Gaza to leave the territory, said last week that progress was being made in returning the hostages.
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Iranian Foreign Minister to Visit Moscow Ahead of Second Iran-US Meeting
FILE PHOTO: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi speaks as he meets with his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein, in Baghdad, Iraq October 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ahmed Saad/File Photo
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi will visit Russia this week ahead of a planned second round of talks between Tehran and Washington aimed at resolving Iran’s decades-long nuclear stand-off with the West.
Araqchi and US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held talks in Oman on Saturday, during which Omani envoy Badr al-Busaidi shuttled between the two delegations sitting in different rooms at his palace in Muscat.
Both sides described the talks in Oman as “positive,” although a senior Iranian official told Reuters the meeting “was only aimed at setting the terms of possible future negotiations.”
Italian news agency ANSA reported that Italy had agreed to host the talks’ second round, and Iraq’s state news agency said Araqchi told his Iraqi counterpart that talks would be held “soon” in the Italian capital under Omani mediation.
Tehran has approached the talks warily, doubting the likelihood of an agreement and suspicious of Trump, who has threatened to bomb Iran if there is no deal.
Washington aims to halt Tehran’s sensitive uranium enrichment work – regarded by the United States, Israel and European powers as a path to nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is solely for civilian energy production.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Araqchi will “discuss the latest developments related to the Muscat talks” with Russian officials.
Moscow, a party to Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact, has supported Tehran’s right to have a civilian nuclear program.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on vital state matters, distrusts the United States, and Trump in particular.
But Khamenei has been forced to engage with Washington in search of a nuclear deal due to fears that public anger at home over economic hardship could erupt into mass protests and endanger the existence of the clerical establishment, four Iranian officials told Reuters in March.
Tehran’s concerns were exacerbated by Trump’s speedy revival of his “maximum pressure” campaign when he returned to the White House in January.
During his first term, Trump ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions on the Islamic regime.
Since 2019, Iran has far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on uranium enrichment, producing stocks at a high level of fissile purity, well above what Western powers say is justifiable for a civilian energy program and close to that required for nuclear warheads.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has raised the alarm regarding Iran’s growing stock of 60% enriched uranium, and reported no real progress on resolving long-running issues, including the unexplained presence of uranium traces at undeclared sites.
IAEA head Rafael Grossi will visit Tehran on Wednesday, Iranian media reported, in an attempt to narrow gaps between Tehran and the agency over unresolved issues.
“Continued engagement and cooperation with the agency is essential at a time when diplomatic solutions are urgently needed,” Grossi said on X on Monday.
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