On Friday, Jana ditched the kids and we left for an early morning visit to the Anne Frank house. We had wandered by on the very cold and raining Monday before and found a queue running around the block. We hoped that getting there early would help us avoid the lines.
We were able to walk right up to the ticket counter and enter the museum. It took about an hour to walk through the small, unfurnished rooms. Quotations from the diary painted on the walls gave context to the different rooms while small displays scattered throughout gave more details.
The somewhat forced progression of the tour made it hard to get a full sense of the layout of the building. We proceeded through the main office building, climbing behind the bookcase that concealed the entrance to the secret annex, and then zigzagged through the different rooms where the eight stayed hidden for two years.
At the end of the tour, there was a new exhibit that tried to explore the limits of controls on freedoms and privacy. A short video would introduce some rule or law from around the world. After a brief analysis, the audience was polled for its view on whether the law should be enforced. I noticed that the views of the crowd tended to be fairly liberal--except for questions involving the rights of neo-nazis to protest or for people to be allowed to buy Mein Kampf, for which the audience tended to overwhelming support a ban.
By the time we left, a queue had already formed around the block. Getting there early was a good call.
