Some 80 years after Anne Frank's family fled Frankfurt because of the Nazis' rise to power, their belongings, including thousands of letters and toys, are being returned there, and will be displayed in the city's Jewish Museum.
Anne Frank's famous diary, which she wrote between 1942-44, is not among the items that will be going to the Frankfurt museum on permanent loan; it will remain in the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam.
The Frankfurt Jewish Museum will be expanding its premises to display the items, with the new wing to be completed by 2015 and to be known as the Frank Family Center. The items include furniture, pictures, drawings and other memorabilia. Most of them had been stored in a Swiss attic for decades until they were discovered by accident in 2001.
The decision to send the belongings to Frankfurt was made by the Anne Frank Fund, which is based in Basel, Switzerland, and run by Buddy Elias, 86, Frank's cousin and last surviving relative.
The Frank family had lived in Frankfurt since the 17th century. In 1933, with the rise of the Nazis to power, the Franks fled to Amsterdam. In 1942, the family went into hiding, concealing themselves in secret rooms in an office building belonging to Anne's father, Otto. Two years later, they were discovered and sent to concentration camps. Anne and her sister, Margot, died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen in 1945.
Otto Frank, who survived the war, returned to Amsterdam to find that the diary Anne had been keeping for over two years has survived. It was first published in 1947.