They were here from 6 July 1942 until their discovery on 4 August 1944. It belonged to the office and warehouse-workshop of the firms Opekta, Pectacon and Gies & Co.
In May 1960, this hiding place, along with the entire building and the building at Prinsengracht 265, was made accessible to the public as the museum 'The Anne Frank House'.

The physical environment of the people in hiding

According to current views, the annex without a capital letter is the designation for the building part that was built in 1739 behind the front house dating from 1635. The building is a mishmash of rooms, corridors and stairs in which the uninitiated can quickly lose track. The capitalized 'Secret Annex' specifically refers to the top two floors, attic and loft of this building, and therefore refers to the actual hiding place. The Frank and Van Pels families stayed in the Secret Annex for about 25 months, Pfeffer for about 21. During that period they really did not go outside. The Secret Annex and to a lesser extent the rest of the building was the only living environment during that time. The shelter can be interpreted as two floors on which two families lived. However, one family had no bathroom, the other no kitchen. They were therefore even more dependent on each other than was already the case because of their shared fugitive state. The different parts of the house are present in all kinds of diary entries. This topic first covers the different rooms of the Secret Annex, the actual hiding place behind the bookcase, and then the rest of the building. In the other parts of the building, usual business operations continued as usual.

Behind the bookcase

The bookcase was placed in front of the entrance to the Secret Annex in August 1942, because Victor Kugler feared searches for hidden bicycles.^[1] That was not a complete exaggeration: the requisition of bicycles by the Wehrmacht was then just beginning. Hauptdienstleiter Schmidt said about this in a speech: 'They [the reluctant Dutch] should not imagine that we do not know where they have those bicycles or how we can get our hands on them.' ^[2] Risks were carefully avoided, and camouflage of the entrance to the Secret Annex fit into this pattern. Since this placement, the bookcase was the boundary between the inner and outer world, both physically and psychologically.

During the period in hiding, Bep Voskuijl was once locked up in the Secret Annex together with the people in hiding. Because the bookcase was stuck, she couldn't leave. As a result, the people in hiding could not be warned in time for the workman who came to do something about the fire extinguisher in the hall.^[3] This hall, the so-called 'intermediate section', had become a dead end when viewed from the front of the house due to the arrival of the bookcase. The door to the front house was locked and the glass on the inside was covered with a plate.^[4] The entrance to the Secret Annex could only be reached via the so-called 'helper's stairs'. This means that no one could enter without being allowed in by the office staff.

Bags of dried beans hung on the landing.^[5] Behind the landing, to the left behind the stairs was the Frank family's room. This was the family's living room and the Franks' bedroom. There was a bookcase, a table, a stove and Otto and Edith Frank's beds. This meant that the rather small room (just over 15 m²) was quite full. On one wall, the family kept track of their daughters' growth. From D-Day onwards there was also a map on which they followed Allied progress with pins.

Margot and Anne shared the adjacent room (10 m²) until the arrival of Fritz Pfeffer in November 1942. Pfeffer was in fact a boarder of the Frank family. He took the place of Margot, who from now on slept on an accordion bed in her parents' room.^[6] Anne had already pasted all kinds of pictures on the walls of the room for decoration.^[7]

Adjacent to this room is the laundry room with toilet. This washing facility was for all people in hiding and therefore good logistics were needed: 'it all starts early in the morning, we get up at 7 and line up for the bathroom'^[8] In the bathroom there was a washstand that was on the other side of the wall before going into hiding, and had been moved in view of the new function of the rooms. Because the facilities were shared by seven, later eight, people, resentment regularly arose about their use.^[9]

The steep staircase in the middle of this floor led to the Van Pels family room. This room (29 m²) was the living room of this family, bedroom of Hermann and Auguste van Pels and also a dining room for all.^[10] There was a kitchen sink and a stove^[11] Before going into hiding, the room served as a laboratory for Victor Kugler and Arthur Lewinsohn, who conducted experiments for the company Gies & Co. Because of thin walls, everyone withdrew to this room when there was danger, such as when outsiders visited^[12] and after the burglary of 9 Apri 1944.^[13]

Next to the Van Pels family room was Peter's room. He was the only one who had the luxury of his own room (8 m²). That room did contain the stairs to the attic, so anyone who had something to do there - fetching potatoes, hanging up laundry - came to see him.

The children retreated to the attic (41 m²) and the loft (27 m²) to distance themselves from the adults and be among themselves. Particularly well-known are the romantic gatherings between Anne and Peter, during which they looked out of the dormer window at the rear..^[14] Peter spent a lot of time in the attic; he withdrew here with the book he was not allowed to read.^[15] The bags of beans from the landing later found a place here, and there was also a pantry made by Van Pels for other supplies. Furthermore, the potato barrels^[16] were located in the attic and the laundry was hung to dry there.^[17] In the loft above was Mouschi's litter box.^[18] Peter did carpentry and chopped wood there.^[19] The arched window overlooking the Westertoren was also located here.

Outside the Secret Annex

The private office, the office kitchen and the (large) toilet were located in the annex, but not in the Secret Annex. Regular work was required on the drain and water pipes, and the arrival of the plumber forced silence in the Secret Annex again. The people in hiding used the kitchen partly because it was equipped with a geyser and a small stove.^[20] They proved useful for hot water and baths. Anne initially bathed in the office toilet, but later preferred the kitchen.^[21] The radio was in the private office next door until the end of July 1943, where the people in hiding gathered for news reports but also for concert broadcasts.^[22]

The warehouse and offices of Kleiman and Kugler in the front house were available to the people in hiding after five and at weekends. The girls, Otto Frank, Hermann van Pels, Peter and Pfeffer, took advantage of this circumstance to do some work or to get away from the closet for a while.^[23] For security reasons, Pfeffer had to give up his trips to Kugler's office. Edith Frank and Auguste van Pels - at least as far as Anne mentions - only came to the private office to listen to the radio and to the kitchen for the laundry. Anne occasionally went to the attic with Peter and Mouschi.^[24] Peter also used the attic as a lookout post during an air raid on the Fokker factory.^[25]

For Anne, the building outside the bookcase was often a source of fear. She indicated that she found the dark house creepy. Early 1944, she consciously overcame her fear and went down the stairs alone, despite there being many planes in the sky.^[26]

In the business area, all the way down to the street, there were facilities that rarely played a role, but were vital: the energy meters. Nothing is known about the gas meter. But a power fuse blew out at least twice. The first time was before the more practical Van Pelsen arrived, leaving the Frank family in the dark until the next day.^[27] The second time, 'the men' immediately solved the problem.^[28]

The Secret Annex as a refuge for eight people appeals to the imagination due to the familiarity of what happened there. As evidenced by the many visitors, the building has become an integral part of the history of hiding. Anne's diary can hardly be separated from the place where it was written.