One vote and one free visit. Voters in Amsterdam who will participate in the Dutch elections on November 22 will be able to register their choice in an unusual place: the famous Anne Frank House, the museum announced Friday. “The Anne Frank House is one of the places that reminds us of what can happen when democracy and the rule of law disappear,” he explained in a press release, hoping that more young people will come to vote.
Amsterdam City Hall clarified that the decision came from the museum, managed by the Anne Frank Foundation. Mayor Femke Halsema said in a letter to the city council Thursday that “given the situation in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, special attention will be paid to the security of this polling station.”
Voters will be able to visit the canal house, one of the city’s main tourist attractions, for free. It will in theory be closed to other visitors, unless few people come to vote. The Van Gogh Museum and a mosque in the west of the Dutch capital (Westermoskee) will also be special polling stations, according to the town hall.
Elections that could change everything
The Netherlands goes to the polls on November 22 in what promises to be a seismic political event in the country, with new parties shaking up the status quo. Outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte has announced that he is leaving politics after a record thirteen years at the head of government. The race is tight according to polls, with a new party created by popular MP Pieter Omtzigt currently marginally in the lead, followed by the traditional center-right and center-left parties.
The museum preserves the house where the Jewish Frank family hid from the Nazis and where Anne wrote her famous diary, one of the most memorable accounts of the Holocaust, which sold some 30 million copies. After two years in hiding, Anne Frank and her family were captured in 1944. The teenager and her sister died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. The museum welcomes around a million visitors each year.