The House On The Canal by Thomas Harding

A building located in the middle of Amsterdam next to a canal was referred to by Anne Frank as "the old house on the canal."  That house had it's beginnings long ago. 

In 1580, the land where the "tall, narrow house" would come to stand was part of a marshland filled with field mice and seagulls. In the 1600's people came to build a canal that had strong walls. In 1635, a stonemason built a brick house with a green door close to the canal. When he required more space, the stonemason built an annex at the back of the house. More homes were built next to the house, one with blue shutters, another with red shutters, as well as a church with bells that rang four times every hour. 

In 1653, the house was the home of a woman with twelve children. She had fled persecution because of her Christian beliefs.  The plague raged along the canal in 1709, but the woman and her family survived. She lived for many years there. The Great Frost came, freezing the canal, meaning that food and water could not be supplied to the people that lived hear the canal. Eventually a wealthy merchant and his wife moved into the rundown house, repainting and repairing the annex. Although they had no children there were parties and many of their friends visited. Eventually the merchant died and his wife moved out of the house. After many winters, the ground floor of the house became stables for horses. It soon became a place of business.

By 1880 the house on the canal was still used as a home with people living in both the front and the annex in the back. The area around the house and the canal smelled like rotten eggs. In 1884 a fire raged blistering the brick walls but firefighters saved the house. In the early 1900's the house once again became the home for a family, an ironmonger, his wife and children. The stage was set for the house to play an important part in a war that saw millions killed.

Discussion

The House On The Canal is a picture book that traces the history of the house that would become known as the Anne Frank House, so named because it was where Anne Frank and her family along with the van Pels family and a dentist hid from the Nazis during the occupation of Holland in World War II. In the back matter of the book, the author writes that the house was built on a canal, called the Prinsengracht (or Prince's Canal) by Dirk van Delft in 1635. He eventually added on to the rear of the house, an addition called the annex which would play a part in hiding Anne and seven others.

Although Harding doesn't mention them by name in his account, in the back matter he does identify the people mentioned: Baefje Bisschop was the woman with twelve children who found refuge in the home, the wealthy merchant was Isaac van Vleuten who moved into the house in 1740 with his wife Cornelia, the ironmonger was Alle Pieron who moved into the house in 1901.Of course many readers will know that the "...tall man in a fine suit" was Otto Frank and the "young girl with a sweet smile" was his daughter Anne.

Otto Frank moved his businesses into the house in 1940 but when the Nazis began rounding up the Jewish people in Amsterdam in 1942, he moved his family into the top three floors of the annex where they lived hidden for over two years. Sadly Anne and the other Jewish people were betrayed by an unknown person and sent to concentration camps. Only Otto would survive the war, returning to Amsterdam in 1945. Anne's diary had been recovered from the annex by two of Otto's employees, Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl. It was given to Otto upon his return. The house was bought by NY Berghaus who were convinced by Otto Frank to donate it. More than a million people visit the restored house annually.

Thomas Harding previously authored a picture book about a house his great-grandfather built outside of Berlin prior to World War II, exploring the unique history of that house and how his family lost and then regained it. In this latest offering, Harding explores the history of a better known house, the annex that was the hiding place of Anne Frank and her family during World War II. Readers are taken back to the very beginning, before the canal existed and before the house was built. The timeline approach, with each two page spread featuring a specific year, identified in the upper right corner of the right page, offers readers a coherent and easy to follow story. Readers can see how, over a period of centuries, a house can be used in many different ways: as a home for a family,  as a place of work and sometimes as a place of refuge. The simple text is accompanied by illustrations done in mixed media by illustrator, Britta Teckentrup.

The House On The Canal offers a unique and interesting way to introduce young readers to the story of Anne Frank. Although there is a photograph of the Annex taken in 1954, a more recent colour photograph of the house, along with a photograph of Anne Frank would have put a face to the name.

Book Details:

The House On The Canal by Thomas Harding
Somerville, Mass.: Candlewich Studio     2025

The House By The Lake by Thomas Harding

This beautiful picture book tells the fascinating story of a real house, located in the village of Grob Glienicke, about fourteen kilometers west of Berlin. It was built by a German physician,  Dr. Alfred Alexander for his family. The book takes young readers through the various families that lived in the house, beginning with the family of "a kind doctor and his cheery wife who wanted to live with their four children away from the busy city." This " house held their dreams."

After a few years, the doctor's family was forced to leave when soldiers showed up. After a year empty, the house saw a new family arrive. The family was musical, the father played piano and the mother sang. Their two boys joined a youth group and spent time marching around the house. The metal gutters were given to make guns. War was coming and the father was told he needed to fight. This family fled and the house was once again empty.

More families would come to live in the house over the next many decades. The house would cut off by a large wall. It would be abandoned eventually, the floorboards and doors taken for firewood. Until one day a young man came to the house, saw that the house needed to be repaired. That man worked along with the villagers to clean and restore it until he was able to hang a picture of his great-grandparents above the fireplace.

Discussion

The House By The Lake is a picture book adaptation of Thomas Harding's hardcover of the same name. Harding is the great-grandson of Dr. Alfred Alexander, who built the house for his wife Henny and their four children in 1927.  In July of 2013, Thomas Harding returned to Germany, and was able to locate the lake house or Glienicke he had been told about all his life. 

Harding's ancestor, Alfred Alexander was a Jewish physician who was part of Berlin society in the 1920's. His hard work meant that he was able to build a small, nine room wooden house on the shore of a nearby lake for his family. The Alexander family was the first Jewish family to live in the village of Grob Glienicke. Summers were spent at the house, swimming in the lake and hosting parties. However, this idyllic time was soon to vanish with the rise of Nazism and the threat of another world war.  As Germany began to sink further into the mire of Nazism, the Alexander family's situation began to change. The various laws passed by the German state restricting the rights of Jewish citizens began to impact Alexander. His practice was affected and even some of the children were no longer able to attend school. 

However, Alfred refused to leave Germany as he believed the political situation would eventually improve. By 1936, the Gestapo were beginning to arrest prominent Jews like Alfred. At this time he was visiting a daughter who had just given birth, in London, England. A friend warned him that he was on a Gestapo list and so Alfred remained in London. Their remaining adult children left Germany, while Henny and Elise worked on selling the building where Alfred had his medical practice.

Henny and her daughter Elsie, who would become Thomas Harding's grandmother, closed up the lake house and gave the key to the family lawyer, Dr. Goldstrom. So began the next chapter in the history of the house by the lake. The Alexander family officially lost ownership of the house in 1939 when the Gestapo seized their assets. From this point on, the house would be occupied by four different families over the next sixty years.

While the picture book does not go into great deal about the history of the house, it does give young readers the basics of the story. The story of the house is not only one that is tied to five families throughout the 20th century, but it is also tied to the history of Germany and the Berlin and Potsdam area, spanning the period from the late 1920's to 1999 when the house became permanently vacant.

Accompanying the text are the mixed media illustrations of Britta Teckentrup. The illustrations capture the many moods of the events that occurred during the last eighty years of the house's existence. For example, illustrations showing happy, summer days at the house are filled with greens and blues, while the arrival of the Nazis is portrayed in black, grey and brown colours. Nazi war planes flying over the house and the coming of war feature black, orange and greys, symbolizing war, bombing and fire. The final illustration of the restored house is one of lovely summer colours.

The House by the Lake is a picture book that provides the opportunity to study the effects of war on a personal level, exploring how one family lost and regained a beloved family home, but also a chance to explore some important historical events of the twentieth century.
For more information, readers are directed to the Alexander Haus website: https://alexanderhaus.org/

Book Details:

The House by the Lake by Thomas Harding
Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press      2020

Britta Tecketrup illustration: https://twitter.com/BTeckentrup/status/1258771788722511876/photo/1