Anne Frank diaries to be moved to Anne Frank House

By Ben Berkowitz
AMSTERDAM (Reuters Life!) - Anne Frank's diaries are coming home for what would have been her 80th birthday had she survived the Nazis.
The Dutch government, the institute to which Otto Frank left his daughter's famed diaries and the foundation that runs the Anne Frank House said on Thursday that all of her writings will go on display at the house from November.
"Anne is coming home, her work will return here," Dutch Culture Minister Ronald Plasterk said at a press conference before the signing of the permanent loan agreement.
Anne Frank became famous posthumously for the diaries she kept while in hiding from the Nazis with her family in Amsterdam during World War Two. First published in 1947 and now translated into more than 70 languages, her diary remains one of the world's best-selling books.
The Jewish teenager and her relatives hid in a warehouse annex until they were betrayed and arrested in August 1944. Anne Frank, who died the following year in a concentration camp, would have been 80 years old on Friday.
When he died in 1980, Otto Frank left her papers to what is now the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation.
The institute has regularly loaned parts of the diaries to the house for display, but the full collection -- including the original chequered diary in which she began to record her thoughts - has been elsewhere.
The collection will be displayed in a new exhibit hall at the house, which is one of the major tourist draws in the city.
But J.F. Westra, director of the Anne Frank House, told Reuters the agreement was not intended to necessarily increase business for the museum, but rather to educate those who already plan to come.
"We think it will be an inspiration for our visitors," Westra said.
(Reporting by Ben Berkowitz, editing by Paul Casciato)

Source: Reuters