Rare Anne Frank video a hit on the Web

The only existing film images of Anne Frank have been loaded on to You Tube by Amsterdam museum the Anne Frank House. Not surprisingly, it has become an instant hit.

Rare Anne Frank video

The only existing film images of Anne Frank have been loaded on to You Tube by Amsterdam museum the Anne Frank House.

The Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam, which preserves the memory of the young diarist who died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945, posted the footage on a new YouTube channel launched last week.

According to the museum, the film was shot on July 22, 1941, to record the wedding of a woman who lived next door to the Franks. About nine seconds into the silent film, the camera tilts up from the bride and groom to show young Anne leaning out of the window of her house to see them.

Adam Gabbatt of The Guardian reported : "A shorter, five-second version of the video was given to Otto Frank, Anne’s father, by the married couple in the 1950s. After Anne’s published diary became widely known in the 1950s the couple recognized her in the film and contacted Otto." The couple, who are still alive, gave the museum the longer version of the clip in the 1990s.

In the five days since the channel was launched, the video has already been viewed more than 1.6 million times.