Every year, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam draws around 1 million visitors looking to visit the living quarters of the Jewish girl and her family. Those who want to expand that experience or who want to get acquainted with her story in a more tech-driven way can now also take an AI-powered walking tour through the city.
Anne Frank and the city of Amsterdam are closely intertwined. Before going into hiding at the narrow house, Anne Frank and her sister Margot walked 2.5 kilometers every day in order to reach their school, as Nazi anti-Jewish laws prohibited them from using a bicycle or public transportation. Moreover, the people who would protect Anne and her family lived and worked all throughout the city.
Now, visitors can experience those significant Amsterdam locations through an AI-powered walking tour developed by the tourism-tech firm CityFans.
“We created this product to bring Anne Frank closer to more people. We tried to dig up stories that maybe most people don’t really know but are incredible, people that really risked their lives to save children and to smuggle them out of the Nazis’ hands into hiding,” Moti Erdeapel, director of CityFans, told news agency AFP.
@capturedbychl0 Anne Frank – Walking Tour with @GetYourGuide #annefrank #amsterdam #annefranktour #annefrankhouse #history #getyourguide #holocaustmemorialday #holocaustmemorial ♬ Little Things – Adrián Berenguer
A new way to learn Anne Frank’s story
As people need to book tickets for the Anne Frank House about six weeks in advance, according to Erdeapel, many tourists leave Amsterdam without having had the chance to learn Anne Frank’s story. The new AI-powered walking tour could change this, as it is available 24/7, and could thus make Frank’s story even better-known to the public.
During World War II, about 107,000 Dutch Jews and refugees were deported, 102,000 of whom were killed. This represents around 75 percent of the pre-war Jewish population in the Netherlands. For Erdeapel, telling Anne’s story and that of her family was also a personal matter.
“One of the things that make it close to heart is not only that it’s such an important story for Amsterdam, but also for me personally, coming from a family of Holocaust survivors. My grandparents survived the Holocaust, a lot of the family members did, and I grew up with these stories about the Holocaust and about people that didn’t make it back,” said the 45-year old Erdeapel, a Amsterdam resident of Polish and Hungarian Jewish descent.
The self-guided tour takes visitors on a 7-kilometer walking tour through Amsterdam and should take about 150 minutes to complete. Along the way, 12 stops at historically important locations – such as the former home of Miep Gies, the Dutch Catholic who helped hide the Frank family – give you a better understanding of Anne Frank’s life, both before and after she went into hiding for two years.
In order to be able to walk the tour, people can buy a voucher for a specific date online. Once purchased, it is possible to start the walk at any time of day. Visitors need to bring their own smartphone and headphones for the experience and the starting point is located at Merwedeplein 37 in Amsterdam.
