12th of June marks young Anne’s 89th birthday, if she had lived long enough to celebrate it. Anne Frank is a notable figure and often portrayed as a glowing beacon against the horrors of the Holocaust . Anne’s life was hard and filled with terror; she and her family hid in the attic of a house from 1942 to 1944 in an attempt to escape Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany. It was in this attic where she wrote her famous diary. The diary itself has become so well known that books, analysis, and movies have been made in an attempt to keep her legacy alive. Anne’s dream was to become a journalist and live her life in a way that it ‘wouldn’t be in vain’. She succeeded.
The Anne Frank House Museum VR Tour is an app that allows a person to step into Anne’s world and take a private look into the way she lived the last two years of her life. We can see how a teenage Ann walked through the halls of the Secret Annex house; step through the door and see what Anne saw – beauty even in the moments of utter despair.
This app isn’t a game, but a vital part of History that has been beautifully brought to life. Hearing or reading about events from the past is one thing; experiencing them yourself via virtual reality helps put the situation into perspective. This app could readily be used in schools or University History Classes to show students the reality behind what happened.
The creation of this app opens an interesting discussion about virtual reality and its application in society as something worth of education. Hopefully we see other similar apps in the future. I for one enjoyed the Anne Frank Museum Tour to the fullest. It helped me see a different viewpoint; one that no living person can imagine.
