News of: Friday, October 28 2005,

Former apartment Anne Frank in Amsterdam restored

The apartment where Anne Frank used to live has been restored into its original state.

The apartment is located at Merwedeplein 37, in Amsterdam south. Anne Frank used to live here from 1933 (after they escaped from Germany) to 1942, when the family went into hiding in the now world-famous Anne Frank House along the Prinsengracht canal.

A team of specialists has restored the apartment on the basis of research in the house, descriptions in Anne Frank's diary and other writings by her, and old pictures.
People in the neighbourhood have donated original elements from their own houses.

The apartment will get a special destination: it will be inhabited by writers who are persecuted in their own country, to live and work here in safety. The first inhabitant (who will stay for a year) is the 32 year old Algerian author and poet El-Mahdi Acherchour.