Sometimes the saddest things is shown in the care people put into what is designed to hurt or shame them.

Anne Frank’s house is a plain, unassuming building. In her time Prinsengracht would have been relatively quiet, today the corner of the street is full of tourists queuing to get the first viewing of the day.

The tour takes you on a winding route from the new annex into the front of the house. You can imagine Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, Miep Gies, and Bep Voskuijl (the only people to know of the existence of the Achterhuis, a Dutch word denoting the rear part of a house, translated as the “Secret Annex” in English editions of the diary) walking here with food, never knowing if they were being followed.

From the morning of Monday, July 6, 1942 until the morning of August 4, 1944 Anne and her family lived in the Achterhuis before they were betrayed. No one really knows who did it (although there is a report on who may have done it available at the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation - Who Betrayed Anne Frank? by David Barnauw and Gerrold van der Stroom, Amsterdam, April 25, 2003. Retrieved March 18, 2006.) They had survived the Hongerwinter or Hunger Winter and remained hidden until almost the liberation of Amsterdam on 5 May 1945.

For the Franks, the van Pels family and Fritz Pfeffer (a dentist and friend of the family who joined them in hiding) that morning sealed their fate. With the exception of Otto, Anne’s father, all died. For Anne her death came from typhus a few weeks before British troops liberated Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945.

Wandering from room to room I’m struck by the everyday things left behind recording those years of hiding and fear. The pictures Anne cut out and pasted on her walls, the pencil marks recording the height of all the children from year to year.

Locked in one of the display cabinets is a yellow Jewish Star which every Jew was compelled to wear. They were provided printed onto lengths of yellow cloth. They had to be cut out and sewn onto every garment the person would wear. A visible mark of race and hate.

The star in this cabinet has been cut out, it’s edges neatly hemmed to prevent it fraying.

I stand and wonder how you could have such care over something which would change your life forever.