New Dutch app offers original writings of Anne Frank

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — A publisher in Amsterdam released the first smartphone application to contain Anne Frank’s diary in its original language.

Uitgeverij Prometheus unveiled the Dutch-language app earlier this month at the Theater Amsterdam, a 1,100-seat auditorium that was built in the Dutch capital earlier this year for the show “Anne,” about the Jewish teenage diarist’s life.

The app, which costs approximately $8.50 to download, contains the international bestseller “The Diary of a Young Girl” — a version of Anne’s writings edited and brought to print by her father, Otto. It tells the story of the Frank family’s two years in hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam until their deportation to German concentration camps, where only Otto Frank survived.

But the app also contains several unedited versions written by Anne Frank, Uitgeverij Prometheus said in a news release.

The app also features two interactive timelines with photographs from World War II and the secret annex where the Franks hid. It also has video interviews with Miep Gies, who helped the Franks in hiding. It further contains the audio book of “The Diary of a Young Girl” read by Carice van Houten, the Dutch actress who portrays The Red Woman in the hit HBO series “Game of Thrones.”

The Dutch-language app is the second app containing the diary, which is the intellectual property of the Anne Frank Fonds in Basel, Switzerland – a nonprofit foundation founded by Otto Frank in 1963. The first Anne Frank app appeared in English last year.

A team of 15 people made production of the second app possible, according to Yves Kugelmann, a board member of the Anne Frank Fonds. Kugelmann said the app “aims to make the Anne Frank story and its context accessible to a new generation of readers.”