VISITORS to a powerful new exhibition will have the chance to see a life size replica of the bedroom in the secret annexe where Anne Frank hid in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.

Anne Frank + You opens in Glasgow just days before what would have been Anne's 90th birthday and yesterday the display was visited by Anne's step-sister, Eva Schloss.

Mrs Schloss met secondary school pupils who are trained Anne Frank Ambassadors, some of 50 teenagers who will act as exhibition guides and give free interactive tours to primary school children and other visitors throughout June.

Mrs Schloss said: "This is why we have all this about Anna Frank because if she would have lived she would have been 90 as well on June 12.

"The exhibition was created several years ago in London and it tells of the life of Anna but also the circumstances they lived at the time when the Nazis came to power and conquered most of Europe and in those countries the Jewish population was destroyed.

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"I have entered the real space in Amsterdam, of course, I was there very often and it is amazing that people, eight people, were staying there for two years under very, very hard circumstances and of course Anna was a bit of a rebel and didn't get on with most of the people and it was really very hard to live through it but, you do a lot of things to save your life and the tragedy was that it didn't save her life but she suffered through two years and then still was betrayed and taken to Auschwitz and later Bergin-Belsen where she perished."

Mrs Schloss and Anne were neighbours in the Amsterdam building where their families lived before World War II and played together as girls.

Mrs Schloss, her parents and brother were taken to Auschwitz where her father and brother both died.

After the war, Eva's mother and Anne's father, Otto, married.

The exhibition, in St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art, is delivered by anti-prejudice education charity Anne Frank Scotland, in partnership with Glasgow Museums.

Historical content is juxtaposed with a contemporary section which highlights themes from Anne’s diary, such as racial hatred and the value of freedom and education.

The event will also see the charity’s Scottish launch of #IstandwithAnne – a social media campaign aimed at encouraging users to show solidarity with Anne’s message of social justice and equality.

It delivers its education programme in primary and secondary schools in Glasgow each year, training hundreds of Anne Frank Ambassadors – young people who are trained to spread Anne’s message of social justice and equality for all in their schools, local communities and online.

Mrs Schloss said: "Those are special children who are ambassadors to learn more about the situation and Anna's story and they are going to teach other children and adults who come to the exhibition what has happened so for them it touches them much closer than if someone just comes to look at it, because hearing the story told is much more personal, they are going to live through it."

Anne Frank Ambassador, Heather from St Roch’s Secondary School, said: "It’s amazing to have the chance to meet Eva and to learn what it must have been like to be a young girl in a concentration camp as she was a similar age to me. "Today people are starting to forget what the Holocaust taught us - we hear about anti-Semitism in the news a lot, from sport to politics, and it’s not right.

"It is important that society doesn’t turn a blind eye on racism and discrimination in the 21stcentury."

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Speaking of the current political climate, of Brexit and US president Donald Trump's visit to the UK, Mrs Schloss emphasised that the lessons of the past must not be forgotten.

Mrs Schloss added: "We are going through definitely a very, very difficult situation there is so much discontent now, not just in Britain and America but people are so dissatisfied they difference between rich and poor is getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

"I have lived in London since 1951 and there were hardships then, but people were coping and helping each other. Now there are people sleeping in the street, drugs are a big problem.

"We need a big, big change. We need good government. We need people who care really for the world."

Anne Frank + You is at St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art from June 7 to 30.