Even before going into hiding, Anne began collecting film star pictures and postcards.^[1] To her American pen pal, Juanita Wagner, Anne wrote on 29 April 1939 that her collection of 'picture-cards' numbered around eight hundred.^[2] This collection went with her from Merwedeplein to the Secret Annex. In her diary, Anne writes about it:

Our bedroom, with its blank walls, was very bare. Thanks to Father — who brought my entire postcard and movie-star collection here beforehand — and to a brush and a pot of glue, I was able to plaster the walls with pictures. It looks much more cheerful. (...).^[3]

Anne spent a lot of time on her collection. She expanded it with new pictures taken from magazines, which she got from helpers. Such as Libelle, Panorama and Cinema & Theatre. She removed pictures from the wall, or hung them on top of each other with 'brush and a pot of glue' or with 'photo corners' to make them easier to change.^[3][4] She also gave away a few movie star pictures to Peter, which he hung in his own room. Anne would have liked to have given him more, but he kindly declined this offer: 'I'd rather keep the one I've got. I look at it every day, and the people in it have become my friends.'^[5]

Research on the walls in the Secret Annex yielded a total of seventy-seven picture descriptions.^[6] Forty pictures came from various magazines, of which twenty-nine were from Libelle. Many film stars came from Libelle in the years 1939-1940.^[7] From Libelle in 1941 she cut out mainly children's pictures,^[8] drawings and two art history images. American film stars were in fewer and fewer of these pictures as the occupation progressed.

All the different pictures show Anne's interests. While in hiding, she became more interested in history and mythology. With Margot, she studied hard 'to keep from being ignorant'.^[9] The story Film Star Illusion, in which Anne describes a meeting with the Lane Sisters that ends with the words that she is 'cured of all celebrity illusions for good '.^[10] The picture research shows that Anne put her money where her mouth is. A picture of the Lane Sisters was hidden behind the picture of Michelangelo's sculpture, and a map of the French-German borderland was mounted with drawing pins on top of the photo of American actress Sally Eilers.^[11]

A number of children's pictures and drawings were also replaced with more adult images. For example, Anne pinned Hermes on top of a picture of a girl with a skipping rope, Paracelsus on a girl with a parasol and a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci on a girl doing laundry with her dolls.^[12]

Anne did not entirely put aside her interest in film stars. In January 1944, she wrote that she still spent many Sundays sorting out and sorting through her large film star collection, 'which has grown to a very respectable size'.^[13] She did, however, have less and less time for it. In May 1944, for instance, she wrote: 'my movie stars are in a terrible disarray and are dying to be straightened out', but as she is 'up to her ears in work, they'll have to put up with the chaos a while longer'.^[14]

Besides magazine pictures and postcards of film stars and children, she also pinned cartoons, landscapes, animals and members of royal families to her wall. About the postcard of the royal family, which she first stuck in her photo album and later pinned to her wall with a drawing pin, she writes that Bep Voskuijl had had it printed especially for her.^[15]

Developmental psychologist Gerrit Breeuwsma compares Anne's passion for collecting with the habit of just about every child to wallpaper his or her bedroom from top to bottom with posters and photos of favorite film stars and artists. He calls this 'a trip outside the safe world of family life and a search for cultural vignettes that suit their interests.' But he finds the diversity and development of Anne's collection special. He sees Anne's collection of clippings as the driving force behind her will to create. Every child is a collector. Often this stems from the need to get something complete. That way, at least something in life is perfect. But with Anne Frank, you can see that her collection also feeds her imagination and creativity. Creativity can be seen as a literal and metaphorical escape from reality.^[7]

Growth lines and map of Normandy

In the living room bedroom of the Frank family, pencil marks on the wallpaper had been used to keep track of Anne and Margot's growth. From this it can be deduced that in two years Anne had grown over thirteen centimetres and Margot one centimetre. On 13 June 1943, Anne copied part of the birthday poem Otto had written for her. In it he poems: 'Yes if one grows 10 centimetres, nothing fits any more, everyone understands that.'^[16]

A map of the Normandy coast hung next to the growth lines. On 6 June 1944, the Allies landed at Normandy in France. Otto Frank cut a map from the front page of De Telegraaf of 8 June 1944, and mounted it on the wall. He kept track of the Allies' progress using map pins.

Preservation of the walls decorated with pictures

In the mid-1950s, when it looked like it would not be possible to save the Secret Annex from demolition, Otto Frank decided to save the growth marks, the map of Normandy and the pictures on the left wall of Anne's room. He cut them from the wall with wallpaper and all. In the end, the Secret Annex was preserved after all. The cut-out pieces of wallpaper were put back in place, but the rest of the walls were in very poor condition. Over the years, souvenir hunters had taken pieces of wallpaper and pictures. The pictures that had fallen off the wall had been put back in place with adhesive tape, and a leak further damaged the walls. Photographs taken in 1954 by Maria Austria and those from the 1980s show some of the missing pictures. Like the three pictures in Peter's room.

Based on historical and material-technical research, all the walls with pictures were restored and conserved in early 2000.^[6] It was then decided to make the pictures look not only as Anne had hung them, but also as they had become over time, including cracks, missing pieces, discolouration and moisture spots, which had developed in the post-war years.