A new virtual reality experience from the Arizona Jewish Historical Society takes visitors through the annex where Anne Frank lived for two years during the Holocaust. The experience takes visitors where Anne Frank lived for two years during the Holocaust, decorated just as it was when she lived there.
Rabbi Jeffrey Schesnol is the associate director and curator of the Cutler-Plotkin Jewish Heritage Center.
“[It’s] unlike if you were to go to the Anne Frank experience in Amsterdam today, it isn’t decorated the way it was when Anne lived there,” Rabbi Schesnol said. “This is actually exactly what she experienced. So you’re almost sitting right next to Anne at her desk, writing the diary.”
Schesnol said the experience is important as well as immersive.
“The world we’re living in today, and the increase in antisemitism and racism, I think the world needs to step back and say. ‘What are we doing?’”
While visitors came into the Cutler Plotkin Jewish Heritage Center to immerse themselves in the experience, two Holocaust survivors were also there to commemorate the occasion.
Author Dirk Van Leenen was one of them. He recalled that under the Nazi regime, people began losing their liberties “in tiny little bites.”
“We can never let that happen again,” Van Leenen said. “And so it’s important to know what happened so that they’re defending against it.”
Van Leenen has written several books, including “Resistance on a Bicycle.” He recalled being overcome with sorrow at times while he wrote, but said sharing those stories is still important to him.
“My father was the head of the resistance,” Van Leenen said. “And he had to bring fake IDs and fake food distribution stamps to all the hiding places. At every road block, he was stopped by the Nazis and frisked and questioned, and sometimes slapped around while I was sitting on the bicycle, seeing that happen.”
Sometimes, Van Leenen said he would act as a distraction for his father.
“He would put his hand on his cheek,” he said. “And that was my cue to create a scene. So I started bawling really loud.”
This would distract the soldiers, Van Leenen said, who would come over and ask what was wrong with him.
“And I would always have to say, ‘I’m hungry,” he recalled. “Because I was, anyway. And sometimes they gave me food. There was still some human in that soldier.”
Philip Speyer was a hidden child during the Holocaust and grew up near where Anne Frank did. Holland was invaded on May 10, 1940. Speyer was born just 20 days later.
“I was born in an occupied country,” Speyer said. “The laws were changing day by day where Jewish people couldn’t attend school, they couldn’t go into restaurants.”
Speyer said his parents hid, but ultimately were captured by the Nazis.
“My mother had plans in case that happened,” he said. “So the first thing she did, she handed me over at night, over a balcony, to a neighbor.”
Speyer said that university students would take children, including himself, out of Amsterdam on bikes. Each student would take a child 10 kilometers, or a little over six miles, to avoid being caught. He ended up in an orphanage where one woman offered to take him home.
“Her mother was a recent widow, [with] four daughters.” Speyer said. “And she says, ‘I cannot take this risk. Because if we get caught, we’re all gonna die.’”
But, Speyer said, the woman he now calls his aunt took him “against all odds” after learning his name.
“And she says, ‘Oh, my God,’” Speyer said. “She said, ‘My husband who died, his name was Philip. God took one Philip, and brought me another one.’”
After the war ended, Speyer was reunited with his mother.
“My mother, who had seven brothers, [their] wives, children, and a sister, [her] husband — all were taken,” Speyer said. “And my mother was the only survivor.”
Speyer says people will take away from these stories, including the new VR experience, what works for them.
“The only thing I wanna impress on people is a couple things,” he said. “Be happy. Okay, that’s very simple. Be good to each other.”
Van Leenen expressed that he was “elated” to see the new experience brought to Phoenix visitors.
Schesnol said the Arizona Jewish Historical Society continues to fundraise for the Holocaust education center it is working to open in Phoenix by 2025.
Both survivors emphasized kindness and empathy, walking in someone else’s shoes. And this new experience could be one more way for those who didn’t live through the Holocaust, like they did, to do just that.
