Ahlers was among the suspects Pankoke and his team investigated and ultimately ruled out. It is still early days for the investigation, but Pankoke told Wootson Jr. of the Post that the team has already produced some interesting information. For a long time, betrayal was considered to be the reason for the arrest of the people in hiding, but the focus is shifting, as there are several other options. 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Among other investigative strategies, they used artificial intelligence to sift through reams of data and original documents. Anne and her family hid for 25 months in a canal-side warehouse in central Amsterdam, where the teen-ager wrote her thoughts, yearnings and descriptions of life in the cramped annex into notebooks. display: block; Frank wist wie hem weghaalde, De Telegraaf, 22 November 1963. He places books and bits of paper on the very edges of things in the warehouse so that if anyone walks by they fall off, Anne wrote in her diary in April of 1944. They didn't flee quite far enough: the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands began in May 1940 and eventually forced the Franks (and many other Jews) into hiding. Did Willem van Maaren betray the Franks? In Van Wijks assessment, there is no doubt Nelly knew about the Jews in hiding. Pankoke and his team are compiling a huge database of other documents that may contain information relevant to the Frank case: lists of Nazi informants, lists of Jews who were turned over to the authorities, names of Gestapo agents who lived in Amsterdam, police records and so on. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. And then they heard the footsteps leave again. ", Dutch historians investigate new claims to identity of person who revealed hiding place of Jewish family, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. (11 April 1944.) Regardless of whether van den Bergh was the person who informed on the Franks, the ones ultimately responsible for their deathsand those of the more than 100,000 Dutch Jews murdered during the Holocaustwere the Nazis. Stockroom manager Willem van Maaren was another suspect, and since several possible culprits knew each other, there is also the possibility that more than one person betrayed the Frank family. But Pankoke said Van Maaren did not hold up as a suspect once investigators examined all the information they found. Even during the early days of the war, the Voskuijl family faced trouble with Nelly. Van Maaren fought the accusations and rejected a settlement. For instance, Melissa Muller's 1998 biography of Anne Frank concluded that a woman named Lena Hartog, wife of the company's assistant warehouse manager, betrayed the family. Left unsigned, the message named van den Bergh as the person whod reported the Franks hiding place to the Nazis. / CBS News. He was not betraying Otto Frank., Ronald Leopold, director of the Anne Frank House, points out that many missing pieces of the puzzle remain, telling the AP, I dont think we can say that [the] mystery has been solved now.. He needed the money and he needed the authorities' protection because his own business had gone bankrupt. First published in English in 1952 as "The Diary of a Young Girl" and later as a stage play and film, her story made her a symbol both of the Holocaust and of Dutch bravery. Ahlers had discovered, says Lee, that Otto's herb and food preservative business had supplied the Wehrmacht throughout the war and that, she suggests, would have been enough to see Otto branded a collaborator. Michael J. Terrified, the people in hiding kept very quiet. Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles, Who Betrayed Anne Frank? Click the link in that email to complete registration so you can comment. Anne often wrote about good-natured Bep in her diary, including happenings in the large Voskuijl family of eight siblings. The first theory, forwarded by British author and Anne Frank expert Carol Anne Lee, in her book The Hidden Life of Otto Frank, seems to have aroused the most interest. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Apparently, the police were called next, because a little while later, they came inside to take a look around. The new investigation does not refute the possibility that the people in hiding were betrayed, but illustrates that other scenarios should also be considered.. For decades, historians have debated who betrayed Anne Frank and her family. The team looked at dozens of potential suspects before arriving at the person they believe likely gave up the Franks' location: Arnold van den Bergh. Wootson Jr. of the Post reports that the teams work will be chronicled in a podcast and, possibly, a documentary. Anne received the famous diary on June 12, 1942, for her 13th birthday, around the time the Gestapo began deporting Jews in Amsterdam. According to the author, he has mostly been met by cold shoulders. The warehouse workers were not to know that there were people hiding in the Secret Annex. He strongly suspected a warehouse employee named Willem van Maaren, who had sparked concerns among the Franks and the people who helped them hide. On August 4, 1944, police in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam raided a warehouse and arrested eight Jews who were hiding in an annex disguised behind a bookcase. The encounter ended with Nelly shouting, Just go to your Jews!. Kugler was a married man, and he never shared the secret of the hidden Jews with his wife, wrote Van Wijk. In 1963, the SS officer. They will also scrutinise the letters of Anne's father, Otto, for clues and examine police transcripts of interviews dating back to the 1940s. "After the play and the book, Otto Frank was kind of like a saint. "There's no smoking gun but we are going to make a comparison of the two theories and see what we can rule out and in. Meanwhile, in 2018, a book claimed to offer evidence that Anne Frankand her family were betrayed by a Jewish woman who was executed after World War II for collaborating with the Nazis. Anne was especially sorry about the latter, because it would be difficult to replace that many coupons. The team hopes to reveal the results of its investigation on August 4, 2019the 75th anniversary of Anne Franks arrest. Terms of Use Two other plausible suspects emerged over the years: Lena van Bladeren-Hartog (died 1963) and Tonny Ahlers (1917 - 2000). For almost 60 years, the identity of that informant, whose call had such tragic consequences, has remained a mystery to historians and the most dogged Nazi hunters. It's been such a long time, and most of the people who knew are dead.". Fifteen-year-old Anne, her sister Margot and her mother Edith died in Nazi concentration camps. In Anne's diary it becomes clear that the Annex occupants also did not trust him. It probably never will be. "And we went into the city archive and found proof that actually he was 'Aryanized,' so he lost his Jewish identity during the war. As Pankoke tells 60 Minutes, the team managed to track down a copy of the note after reaching out to the son of one of the 1963 investigators. Otto, for his part, never publicly named van den Bergh, who died in 1950, as the informant. ", Barnouw told The Associated Press he and another colleague will review old files and testimony for new revelations. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Willem van Maaren was the traitor. According to Pankoke, Van Dijk had betrayed the family of Otto Frank's second wife. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community. The four supplied the families with food and other necessities, knowing full well that they could be condemned to death by the Nazis for aiding Jews. After all, one of her sisters and her father joined the high-risk effort of hiding, feeding, and sustaining eight Jewish fugitives. . Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history. Fox on Parkinson's, and maintaining optimism Ahlers had so much information on Otto Frank. Cookie Policy They seem to work from the point of view that he was guilty and [find] a motive to fit that, Somers adds. Sign me up , CNMN Collection The second thing was there was nothing that actually tied her to information that would have led her to know that people were in the annex.". Registering also lets you comment on articles and helps us improve your experience. display: none; After discovering some of the familys long-held secrets, Van Wijk now believes there is an unsettling reason behind his mothers relative anonymity among the helpers. In addition to Johan Voskuijls involvement, another of the Voskuijl sisters sewed clothes for the Jews in hiding, making the effort a family affair. "I think he actually made the call. Read our affiliate link policy. As the scarcity increased during the war, so did the number of burglaries. Fox on Parkinson's: "Every day it gets tougher". We strive for accuracy and fairness. When the people in hiding put it back, it was brutally kicked in again. Footsteps on the stairways, people shaking the bookcase. Another book posited that the suspect might be a Jewish woman. Advertising Notice Erik Somers, a historian at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, praised the depth of the investigation but criticized its conclusion. After discovering some of the family's long-held secrets, Van Wijk now believes there is an unsettling reason behind his mother's relative "anonymity" among the helpers. That, Ms Lee suggests, is more likely to have been a man called Maarten Kuiper, who made a living from the betrayal of Jews and who moved into Ahlers' flat with him the day before the raid. The Pankoke team's story was featured in a segment on 60 Minutes earlier this week (see the video at end of this post) and is covered in detail in a new book by Rosemary Sullivan: The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation. The subject is still being researched. But Barnouw said Lee's case sounded credible enough for the institute to reopen its investigation into the betrayal. Ahlers said he believed his father received money from Frank, because the flow of funds stopped when Frank died in 1980. She was 15 at the time of her death. Many experts believe that someone alerted Nazi authorities to the hiding place of Frank and her family, but the culprit has never been determined. Did they do it for money? When did the Van Pels (Van . The German-born Frank, who moved to Holland in 1933, ran a spice-trading company that sold goods to the Wehrmacht, the German army. It was clear that Tonny Ahlers had no knowledge that Otto Frank and the others were hiding in the annex.". Thats obvious, said Bertus Hulsman, who was the wartime boyfriend of Voskuijl and sometimes mentioned in the diary. Last year, the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam floated a new theory: Nazi officers who were investigating illegal work and ration fraud at the warehouse accidentally stumbled upon the Jews hiding in the annex. One of the reasons his aunt has been overlooked by past investigators, believes Van Wijk, involves his familys darkest secret. This theory holds that the officers just happened to stumble upon the Jewish families hiding in the attic. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. All the more so because betrayal was never established beyond a doubt. Although he published his mothers most intimate secrets, Van Wijk believes his book would eventually have gained her approval, because she greatly upheld the truth, he said. The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, the researchers who published the authoritative version the diary and the caretaker of the Frank papers, said Ahlers had not been a suspect until Lee started probing his background for her book, "The Hidden Life of Otto Frank," published in March. Although Miep Gies is the best-remembered of the Dutch helpers, Voskuijl was the closest to Anne in age and temperament. Pankoke and his team eliminated her as a suspect for a few reasons. (modern). It is believed that an anonymous tip helped guide the Nazis to the secret annex, yet despite decades of investigations, the identity of the informant has never been proven. Her motive for betrayal, according to Mller, was that she did not want to lose her husband too and he would have been deported for aiding the Franks if they were discovered, which she believed was only a matter of time. Now, a biographer of Anne Frank has published a new theory which has intrigued the nation and revived a dark chapter in Dutch history - the failure to protect Jewish citizens from the genocidal Nazis. Hours earlier, Karl Josef Silberbauer, the Austrian commander of the squad, received a phone call from the head of the Amsterdam security police who said eight Jews were hiding in the warehouse. "And maybe to the Holocaust survivors that are still out there, they understand that somebody still cares that these mysteries are solved. "Otto Frank was of no more use to him in that sense, so he betrayed them," Lee said in the television interview. Speaking with Marsha Lederman of the Globe and Mail, Sullivan says the researchers characterize the notary as a tragic figure, not as some kind of villain. Bayens tells the AP that [w]e went looking for a perpetrator and we found a victim., Van den Bergh gave that list as a way of keeping him and his family out of the extermination camps, Sullivan says. Anne chronicled their lives in the Annex in her diary for the next two years, making her final entry on August 1, 1944. For as little as $6/month, you will: Were really pleased that youve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month. In that statement we indicated the need for further research. A 20-person team for theAnne Frank House was led, in part, by two retired FBI officials; former special agent Vince Pankoke, and behavioral scientist Roger Depue. This theory continues on an assumption that in itself is insufficiently proven, that is that betrayal by telephone led to the raid. ", By Arthur Max For more than 20 years, employee Van Maaren was the main suspect. Investigators began taking a fresh look at the case in 2016, hoping to provide new answers. Tellingly, the books title in Dutch was, Silent No More., The biography is my mission, said Van Wijk, who dedicated the book to Dutch resisters against Nazism. A family's darkest secret sheds light on an enduring mystery, Were really pleased that youve read, Please use the following structure: example@domain.com, Send me The Times of Israel Daily Edition. Willem van Maaren was the traitor. However, because Anne wrote about Nellys collaboration with the Nazis in the original version of her her diary, the authors proved that Nelly returned to Amsterdam in 1943. If Frank had known that Van Dijk had also betrayed his family, Pankoke reasoned, he would have had no incentive to keep the information quiet. Since 2017, Van Wijk has been interviewed several times by members of an international forensics team looking into the cold case of the betrayal, he told The Times of Israel. As a member of the local Jewish Counciladministrative bodies established by the Nazis to govern Jewish communities in German-occupied Europevan den Bergh had access to lists of addresses where Jews were known to be in hiding.