Anne Frank House was established in 1957 – a collaborative effort led by Otto Frank, Anne’s father. An independent non-profit organization, the House runs a museum in the house where Anne Frank went into hiding. On a recent visit to Cape Town, Aaron Peterer, who works at the House, demonstrated a new offering from the Museum: a virtual reality (VR) tour of the section of the property where the Frank family hid.
What this VR tour means is that you do not have to travel to Amsterdam to see where the Frank family were in hiding during World War II – no tickets to be purchased, no long queues to wait in, and no cost involved.
One is able to ‘visit’ the House from the comfort of your own lounge, your desk – in fact, from anywhere – using a computer or your phone. It creates the ability to explore the hiding place of Anne Frank and her family, and gives a special view into the Secret Annex where Anne Frank and the seven other people hid during WWII.
In the VR app, all of the rooms in the Secret Annex are furnished to reflect exactly what the interior looked like when occupied by the group in hiding, between 1942 and 1944. Everything was carefully built and modelled in 3D by the creators of the VR app.
In the actual museum, however, the Secret Annex is empty. After the eight people hiding in the house were found and arrested in 1944, the furniture was removed. Leaving the rooms of the Secret Annex empty was Otto Frank’s wish.
To explore this virtual tour, click on the link here.
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