For Americans, a Chance to Enter Anne Frank's Hiding Place

The annex where the young Jewish diarist Anne Frank hid from Nazi occupiers during World War II is heading to New York. A full-scale replica of the rooms that form the heart of the Anne Frank House museum on one of Amsterdam's historic canals is being built in the Netherlands and will be shipped across the Atlantic for a show titled "Anne Frank The Exhibition" at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan. It opens on Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. More from the AP:

• Standout quote: "For the first time in history, the Anne Frank House will present what I would call a pioneering experience outside of Amsterdam. To immerse visitors in a full-scale, meticulous re-creation of the secret annex. Those rooms where Anne Frank, her parents, her sister, four other Jews, spent more than two years hiding to evade Nazi capture," said Ronald Leopold, director of the Anne Frank House.
• More on the exhibit: While the faithfully rebuilt annex of rooms will be the heart of the exhibit, it also will trace the history of Anne's family from their time in Germany, their move to the Netherlands, and decision to go into hiding, to their discovery by Nazis, deportation, Anne's death, and the postwar decision by her father to publish her diary.
• On display: Among 125 exhibits that are traveling from Amsterdam for the New York exhibition are photos, albums, artifacts such as one of the yellow stars Jews were ordered to wear in the occupied Netherlands, and the Oscar for best supporting actress won by Shelley Winters for her role in George Stevens' 1959 film The Diary of Anne Frank.
• The diary won't come: Anne's diary won't be making the trans-Atlantic trip. "We unfortunately will not be able to travel with the diary, writings, the notebooks, and the loose sheets that Anne wrote. They are too fragile, too vulnerable to travel," Leopold said.

(More Anne Frank stories.)