Courtesy of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect will launch Courtesy of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect will launch the USA a virtual reality tour of Anne Frank’s hiding place, premiering at the Dallas Holocaust Museum this September.
The VR tour, which was launched June 12th in Amsterdam, is a joint project between the Anne Frank House, Force Field VR and Oculus. Available in seven languages (Dutch, English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Hebrew) the tour runs for 25 minutes and can be downloaded free of charge from the Oculus Store for Samsung Gear VR and the Oculus Go Headset from Oculus and Facebook.
The Virtual Reality Secret Annex tour gives a uniquely immersive tour of the hiding place of Anne Frank, giving visitors the chance to see what life in hiding was like for Anne. The rooms of the Secret Annex are furnished in the style of the time spent in hiding and provide an emotional and interactive experience.
Exhibit
The VR headsets and tour will accompany the exhibit Let Me Be Myself-The Life Story of Anne Frank. Provided by the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect USA in partnership with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, Let Me Be Myself tells the story of Anne Frank alongside contemporary stories of young people today.
Drawing inspiration from Anne’s quote, “Let me be myself and then I am satisfied. I know that I’m a woman, a woman with inward strength and plenty of courage,” this exhibition looks at the way young people deal with identity, discrimination and exclusion.
Anne Frank House VR
Katherine Meade, Director for Education at the Anne Frank Center, said that the exhibition and VR tour shows why Anne Frank continues to deeply connect with people today. “In many ways she is an ordinary teenager, writing about ordinary teenage things. Yet she is an extraordinary person. She offers hope and optimism, even amidst bleakness and despair. And we connect so deeply with her because her emotions reflect our own. She is in all of us. We are thrilled to be partnering with the Anne Frank House and Dallas Holocaust Museum to bring this immersive VR experience to people in the United States.”
Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House, said: “The VR tour gives people all around the world the opportunity to explore Anne Frank’s hiding place as it was in July 1942 to August 1944, the period when Anne Frank was forced into hiding and wrote her diary. The tour offers an immersive experience. Our heartfelt thanks go out to Force Field VR, which developed the tour, and to Oculus, which helped to finance and support the project.”
“The Dallas Holocaust Museum is honored to present the Texas premier of this important exhibition that tells the story of Anne Frank in a modern way, addressing current day issues of identity, exclusion, and discrimination,” said Mary Pat Higgins, President and CEO of the Dallas Holocaust Museum. The Exhibit Let Me Be Myself will run at the Dallas Holocaust Museum from September 2018 until August 2019.
