The Secret Annex was the hidden part of an office building in Amsterdam where Anne Frank, her family, and four other Jewish people lived in hiding from the Nazis during World War II.

What the Secret Annex Was

  • It was a concealed set of rooms at the back of Otto Frank’s business premises at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam, known in Dutch as the Achterhuis (“back house”).
  • The entrance was hidden behind a movable bookcase so that visitors or workers in the front offices would not see there was a living space behind.

Who Hid There

  • Eight people lived in the Secret Annex: Anne Frank, her sister Margot, her parents Otto and Edith Frank, the Van Pels/Van Daan family (three people), and Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist.
  • They depended on a few trusted helpers from the office, such as Miep Gies and others, who brought them food, news, and supplies at great personal risk.

What Life Was Like Inside

  • The Annex was cramped and dark, and those in hiding had to stay very quiet during office hours so people downstairs would not hear them.
  • Anne described it as both suffocating and still a fortunate, relatively comfortable place to hide compared with what other Jews were suffering outside.

How It Ended

  • On 4 August 1944, German and Dutch authorities raided the building, discovered the hidden entrance behind the bookcase, and arrested all eight occupants.
  • Only Otto Frank survived the camps; Anne’s diary, preserved by Miep Gies, was later published and made the Secret Annex one of the most well-known hiding places of the Holocaust.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.