Image: Portrait of Anne Frank, 'Anne Frank The Exhibition' — Anne Frank House, Amsterdam / Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago
'Anne Frank The Exhibition', a presentation of the Anne Frank House, opened at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago on Friday 1 May 2026 and is open through 31 January 2027. Griffin MSI is the first museum in the Midwest to host it, and Chicago is only the second US city on the exhibition’s national tour, which began with its premiere in New York on 27 January 2025.
The centrepiece is a life-size, fully furnished reconstruction of the rooms in the Annex where Anne Frank, her parents and sister and four other Jewish people lived in hiding during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The presentation traces her life from her early childhood in Frankfurt through the rise of the Nazi regime and the spread of antisemitism in Europe, the family’s move to Amsterdam, and the two years in hiding that ended with their arrest and deportation in 1944.
Alongside multimedia installations, photographs, film and sound elements, the exhibition includes more than 130 original items from the Anne Frank House collection in Amsterdam, among them Anne Frank’s first photo album, an invitation she typed and wrote by hand to her friend Jacqueline van Maarsen, verses written by Anne and her sister Margot in friends’ poetry albums, and a German book of Grimm fairy tales that belonged to the sisters. A replica of the red-checkered diary is shown in Chicago; the original volumes remain on display at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House, has said the exhibition makes visitors think, and describes commemoration as a moral act calling for empathy and reflection.
Most of the exhibition content is delivered through an included handheld audio guide, available in English and Spanish, with about 60 minutes of content and a 45-minute student version for field trips; printed narration is available on request. The exhibition is recommended for visitors aged 10 and over, takes about an hour, and does not allow photography or bags. Tickets are separate from general admission at $19 for adults and $15 for children aged 3 to 18, with $9.50 member pricing, a $10 Flex Pass upgrade for untimed entry, and free admission for school groups booked in advance.
The record reached us through The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center’s July 2026 newsletter, which flagged the show at its neighbouring museum as an extension of the Anne Frank story it had explored in the play 'Anne & Emmett' (24–26 July 2026). The newsletter’s DUSABLE promo code, which added the exhibition free to a general admission ticket, expired on Friday 7 August 2026.
