Otto Frank at a youth conference at the Anne Frank House

From 1963 onwards, every year young people from all over the world came to the Anne Frank House for international summer conferences on emancipation, religion, and human rights.

The International Youth Centre was enthusiastically run by educator and psychologist Henri van Praag, an acquaintance of Otto Frank’s. In the 1960s, the Anne Frank House organised lectures and courses.

Rabbi Yehuda Aschkenasy, an Auschwitz survivor, ran meetings to promote understanding between Jews and Christians. These meetings drew priests, vicars, rabbis, as well as regular believers.

During this period, the Anne Frank House was also used for literature, poetry, or classical music events. The performers at the concerts were mostly young students from the school of music.

In the second half of the 1960s, the Anne Frank House made room for social criticism. Photo exhibitions and other means were used to protest the war in Vietnam and apartheid in South Africa.