Berlin museum unveils Anne Frank figure

Madame Tussauds in Berlin has unveiled a wax figure of Anne Frank, a Jewish teen who died in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Among the other figures at the museum are US President Barack Obama, supermodel Heidi Klum, activist Sophie Scholl and Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Frank famously kept a journal while she and her family hid in an attic in Amsterdam from June 1942 until August 1944. Her writings were posthumously published as the widely read volume "The Diary of a Young Girl." She, her mother and sister fell ill and died in a concentration camp in 1945. Anne was 15 when she died. Spiegel Online said the Madame Tussauds statue of Frank was based on the last photographs taken of the girl. The figure shows her seated at a desk and writing, surrounded by her favorite books and movie magazines. Lights in the room flicker and voices can be heard outside. "For us, the most important thing was to paint a complete picture," museum spokeswoman Nina Zerbe told Spiegel Online. "We wanted to show Anne Frank in the context in which she lived." The figure was created with the help of expert researchers, who studied documents and historical artifacts relating to the period when and location where Frank lived, Spiegel Online said. "Anne Frank was such a hopeful person," Zerbe said. "It's that sense of optimism that we want to convey in this figure. It's important to let the story continue."