You can connect things Anne mentioned with some online information available.
Her 23 March 1944 entry described a plane crash that happened the day before:
"A pilot crashed near here yesterday, the men were able to jump out in time by parachute. The machine crashed onto a school, but fortunately there were no children there at the time, a few people were killed and there was a small fire. The machine must have hit close to the Market Halls. We've never heard so much shooting before. That was because the Germans fired machine guns at the crew who had jumped out and at the plane as it came down. Ear-splitting shooting lasting ten minutes. It was absolutely terrifying." — 23 March 1944
Someone who was a child when this plane crashed into his school building
has gathered together information about this plane crash and put it
online.
It was an American plane, with Americans in it. (A researcher noted to me that
Americans always flew in the day, the British at night.) There is much more
information on that page, including a recent photo of one of the pilots.
There is still more information, on
the Dutch version
of that page. Try an online translator, such as the free babelfish.
There
were Jews and Resistance weapons hidden in the
school, which had to be quickly cleared out. The green police (Nazis)
found nothing! There are more pictures on this page, and it includes an
eye-witness account. He also explains that his brother was meant to
be there but his singing teacher was ill and so their class was
cancelled (they would have been in the worst-hit part of the school).
1944 03 22 Willem de Zwijgerlaan 193-I, granaat in huis, ��n dode
1944 03 22 Spaarndammerstraat, vliegtuig neergekomen, lijst met slachtoffers.
Obviously, someone would need a good map and some understanding of Dutch to link up other examples of Anne's reporting with dangers coming from the air over Amsterdam. Also, they don't appear to mention all of the war fighting incidents that Anne mentioned (for example, she said there was heavy firing at 2 in the morning on 8 April 1944, but they list nothing for that date).
| Finally, in a related but still more somber note, there is an online image of downtown Amsterdam from the sky, taken from an American spy plane on the day before Anne's hiding place there was raided, 3 August 1944. See the photo collection of WWII Aerial Reconnaissance Archives of the University of Keele, UK (main page), click Frame 4033. The image is "upside down": it has north on the bottom, south on top. Here is a map of Anne Frank's Amsterdam. |