In a cramped room hidden behind a bookshelf in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, 13-year-old Anne Frank sat at her desk, pen in hand. Outside, the streets echoed with the sounds of aerial battles, mass deportations, and bombings. Her diary would become one of the world’s most famous and best-selling books. 

Eighty years after her final entry, the story of Frank’s diary is told in a new light by the author Ruth Franklin and by the Anne Frank House and Center for Jewish History’s “Anne Frank: The Exhibition.”

Ms. Franklin’s new book, “The Many Lives of Anne Frank,” released Monday on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, tells the story of Anne’s evolution to a global symbol in 2025 from a young and persecuted Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis. The Reich murdered her, along with her sister, Margaret, at Bergen-Belsen. Their mother Edith was killed at Auschwitz. Anne’s father, Otto, survived and ushered his daughter’s diary into the world. 

The book, an entry in Yale University Press’s “Jewish Lives” series, combines Frank’s direct testimony in the form of her extraordinary diary with Ms. Franklin’s research and critical analysis. It offers an innovative approach to a familiar story. 

The book launched on January 28 at the Center for Jewish History at downtown Manhattan. Ms. Franklin was joined by the author Jonathan Rosen for a conversation on the importance of Frank’s legacy 80 years after her death. 

Ms. Franklin explained her approach to the story, saying, “I wanted to know everything. All on Anne, her personal life, her family life, and the broader context. From the beginning, I wanted this to also show what was going on outside the annex, things Anne wasn’t aware of but that are crucial for understanding why things happened the way they did. One thing that drove me throughout the project was understanding that the Holocaust in the Netherlands was not as a well-oiled machine, but as a mess.” Three-quarters of Dutch Jews were murdered.

The book and discussion also addressed the misappropriation of Frank’s name, a trend that has grown in recent years. An op-ed in the New York Times bore the headline “Anne Frank today Is a Syrian Girl,” and her diary was quoted during the first Trump administration’s raids targeting undocumented immigrants.  

Ms. Franklin cautioned that in making Frank universal, her experience as a Jew facing Nazi persecution risks being diluted and forgotten. The author warned against a complacency that would conclude that “antisemitism is a solved problem.” Instead, Ms. Franklin insists that the “specific tragedy of Anne’s experience and the broader issues of persecution must coexist.” 

Frank had a talent not only for the written word but also for finding beauty in the broken. When the fear of deportation and persecution forced her family into hiding in the 484-square-foot annex, Anne covered the walls with movie posters, photographs of the royal family, and cutouts from Dutch magazines. Later, pictures of art, like an image of Michelangelo’s “Pietà,” joined the collection. This show features a full-scale recreation of the annex.

The show marks the first full-scale recreation of the annex outside Amsterdam, where Otto Frank preserved the original space where he hid along with his family, the Van Pels family, and a dentist, Fritz Pfeffer. It became a museum in 1960. The center shares that in light of the growing rise in antisemitism in America, the decision was made to bring this exhibit to American audiences. 

The installation guides visitors through the Frank family’s journey, from their life in Germany to their escape to Amsterdam and the five rooms of the annex. It traces the diary’s story into this century. As a visitor moves through the exhibit, the light gradually dims and with each step, the darkness deepens, leaving a quiet weight that lingers. Then, just as subtly, brightness returns, only to fade once more — hope found, hope lost.

To the faded satchel Otto used at Auschwitz from the porcelain plates of their original home, the more than 100 artifacts and photographs leave an indelible mark. An ironic stillness hangs over the delicate china, a stark contrast to the shattered world around it and the lives it once belonged to.

The president of the center, Gavriel Rosenfeld, highlights to the Sun the profound honor the organization felt in helping bring Anne Frank’s legacy to life for a new audience. He calls the show consistent with the center’s “mission of preserving Jewish history.” It also honors Frank’s wish, scribbled in her diary, to “go on living even after my death!” 

“Anne Frank: The Exhibition” is open until April 30. A programming series will accompany the show.