(Ed. note: This piece is satire in response to a on-going discussion concerning the Madison music community and journalistic responsibility. We apologize to our regular readers who may be unaware of the circumstances that inspired this piece.)

Near the rear of the fourth floor of the Opekta warehouse on a Wednesday night in April, 1943, a raven-haired, baby-faced young woman ushers in one of her only two friends that supply her with food. Her frown and darting gaze suggest abject fear, like a kid showing off a secret treehouse in his backyard where his family hides in fear of ethnic cleansing.

"This is where I hang out," she says, glancing back and forth between the oppressively confining walls and the peeling paint hanging from the ceiling.

"I pictured it different," her friend replies. "I pictured just a square room. This is several tiny square rooms."

Secret Annexe is Amsterdam's most secret Hebrew venues, a hub of the local hardcore Hassidic scenes. It's tucked away behind a hidden door at the site of a spice and gelling company in the 200 block of Prinsengracht Street. In the middle of a narrow hallway storage area, its entrance is concealed by a swinging bookcase. A narrow sliver-infested stairway leads up to it. On every night, this attic is the central gathering zone for the people who live here to avoid persecution of minority populations.

Inside, Secret Annexe holds true to the gritty mystique of the underground. There is no visible bathroom here, because bathrooms are generally not lying out in the open in case somebody might wish for privacy while using them. Exposed insulation coats the ceiling, because it is an attic and that is how insulation is installed in most attics. On the night of my attendance, I saw several unwashed dishes. A mouse crawled out of a nearby garbage bag and scurried away, just as one did in my own home a couple months ago, but it was more squalor-y here, you know?

Were you to assume from Secret Annexe's grungy appearance that it is a place devoid of values, you would be wrong. Rather, Secret Annexe is a hall of assembly for a committed band of racial renegades promoting an ethic of trying not be murdered: You don't need to submit to the expectations of mainstream Aryan culture to find your grim fate. You can look within; you can look among the tattered resources others secretly bring to you to maintain your meager existence; you can devise an alternative strategy, "Somehow Staying Alive." This is l'chaim, the essence of hardcore Hebrew.

An associated value of l'chaim is unwavering support for all-ages inclusion. So Secret Annexe is a venue of choice for several adventurous young Jews in search of a firebrand alternative identity rather than the popular image of the "dirty goddamn kike". Under the radar of the secret police, they share daily messages, playful photos and their deepest thoughts, accessible through their private diaries.

Secret Annexe has remained unknown to the larger Amsterdam community despite covert occupation dating back to at least July 1942. Curiously, their occupants include nationally known businessmen, such as Otto Frank (the German Jew that got his start in Landau).

In the end, the story of Secret Annexe isn't just about the surreptitious ways of an unkempt, barely-resistant underground. It's about the sides of itself Europe wishes to cleanse from the gene pool.

aLL-aGeS aLLure

The night after I visited the Secret Annexe, I sent a secret message to one of its members, Fritz Pfeffer, asking him how he knew about the venue. The next day, he replied with this:

"I'm not sure if this is obvious to you, but the space is very much under the radar. I'm not sure they would approve of any publication. It's basically a last refuge of hope for this family called Frank."

The great irony of Secret Annexe's anonymity is that its soul is laid bare in excruciating detail, through the easily-prised-open diaries of local teenagers who live there.

Among Secret Annexe's eight refugees is Margot, whose describes herself as a 19-year-old girl who likes midwifing, Dutch Zionism, and Ashkenazic prayer chants. Margot doesn't like "people who are homophobic, sexist, anti-Semitic or discriminate in any way."

"This isolation is an amazing experience," writes Margot. "I've discovered that more people than I thought have similar father issues and we can really relate. My sister, for example."

Seen through that lens, Secret Annexe is as much a social club as a desperate mouse hole. It is a destination controlled and defined by the Jews themselves, whose conversations suggest at least as much affection for each other as the rabbinical elders who lead them:

"Thanks for being such a great friend," wrote one of Margot's Secret Annexe-linked cohabitants named Peter Van Daan. "I had a lot of fun being forced to spend some time with you this past year. Thanks for everything you've done for me. I'm so thankful for our friendship."

LiVe anD Let LiVe

My night at the Secret Annexe became a venture in dispelling myths. A friend suggested I would be recognized as an obvious outsider and would not be welcomed.

That proved to be untrue. Instead, a live-and-please-let-us-live vibe dominated the scene. There was no "one look" to emulate. A surprisingly wide variety of types mingled — men and women, teens and young adults, the clean-cut and the grungy.

Another friend told me the Secret Annexe was for tough-guy rabbis who liked to kvetch. Again, not true on this night. The peaceful gathering of about eight people (a respectable count for any hideout on a Wednesday night) was never once threatening, instead appearing extremely threatened.

Consistent with l'chaim values, no one at Secret Annexe came off as an identifiable "person in charge." No hierarchy. No apparent monitoring. Although if I had actually asked, I might have found out that Otto Frank was in charge. The families carried books and laundry. And while there was no visible circle of people combining the flammable books and laundry into a deadly bonfire destroying the entire waterfront district, the prospect of that seemed wide open.

The scariest thing about the Secret Annexe for me turned out to be the pins and needles I got in my legs from sitting still for ten hours straight. Maybe it was just a lack of blood flow caused by a restriction in movement. Still, I couldn't help but flash back to a story I once heard about a guy who got pins and needles so bad his legs fell off. Secret Annexe is ultimately a private gathering place that thrives on immobility, and it's possible that no one has planned for preventing such a tragedy here. Surviving an inspection of the building by gestapo? Awesome. Spending the rest of your life as paraplegic with survivor syndrome? Major bummer.

Another friend suggested that to report on the Secret Annexe would be to kill everybody in it. Perhaps more than any other, that comment gave me pause. I have felt firsthand the power of having your life. It's a gift no one should have to lose.

But it came down to this: Why would I not report on Secret Annexe? It fits every criterion of a worthy subject. To deliberately withhold such a story felt like a compromise of my independence, expressed by my desire to write a compelling article of benefit to nobody for my own personal profit. Can't l'chaim apply to me, too, if I ignore its actual definition?

I am also unconvinced that exposure necessitates Secret Annexe's demise. That, in fact, may be the final myth to dispel. There are shades of gray separating Secret Annexe from longstanding nontraditional venues such as work camps and ghettos. And those shades would seem to come down to basic inspections that assure safety and a commitment to uphold the Nuremberg Laws on Citizenship and Race. Secret Annexe's survival is a matter of choice.

The perceived gulf separating Secret Annexe from the rest of Amsterdam is ultimately a social construction. On the one side is a partially underage, alternative religio-ethnic community whose primary vehicle for expressing its opposition to mainstream culture is secrecy itself. On the other side is a liberal citizenry uninterested in the real underground in its midst, which might lead one to think there is no logical reason to bring it to the attention of that establishment at the expense of alerting the government agents who are interested for all the wrong reasons. No wonder Secret Annexe has lasted so long until I decided to change all that.

Whatever becomes of Secret Annexe, the venue proves that the underground remains a potent force in local survival.

"I still believe that people are really good at heart!" was one writer's reaction to being sequestered in the Secret Annexe, written in her private diary. "Shit like this is the indomitable human spirit at its best. No other subculture rocks like basic decency to one's fellow man!"

MORAL: When writing about things you don't understand (which is a necessary part of being a reporter), you can choose your angle in advance to produce a piece that makes you sound like an uninformed, condescending jackass and belittles an entire community. Or you can treat your subjects with sincere respect, learn something from them, and take those lessons to your readers rather than reinforcing the usual stereotypes.