During the day we always have to walk quietly and speak softly, the people in the warehouse mustnt hear us, Anne wrote in her diary (11 July 1942). That was a major setback, because Van Maaren was curious, and he noticed that people had been in the building after closing time. "He was a Dutch Nazi, a well-known traitor and an anti-semite and was very anti-Jewish. Wootson Jr. of the Post reports that the teams work will be chronicled in a podcast and, possibly, a documentary. First, fingers were pointed at Willem van Maaren, who worked in a warehouse below where the Jews were hidden by coworkers of Otto Frank, Anne's father. But two police investigations - one immediately after the war and another in the 1960s - turned up nothing and Van Maaren died in 1971 professing his innocence. 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. Her political leanings had estranged her so much from her family that she left their house. In his 2018 book The Backyard of the Secret Annex author Gerard Kremer claimed that Ans van Dijk betrayed those hiding in the annex. It's been such a long time, and most of the people who knew are dead.". It has been translated into 70 languages and inspired a theatrical play and subsequent Oscar-winning 1959 film, featuring Millie Perkins in the title role. Anne died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen in the spring of 1945, just weeks before the camp was liberated. Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel, 2023 The Times of Israel , All Rights Reserved, Anne Frank, aged 12, at her school desk in Amsterdam, 1941. Fox on Parkinson's: "Every day it gets tougher" It has been widely believed that Willem van Maaren, a warehouse employee who worked for Otto Frank, outed the Frank family. The house where she and her family hid in a sealed-off room at Prinsengracht 263 in central Amsterdam was turned into a museum in 1960 and receives almost a million visits a year, mainly from the US. The video above was produced by Brit McCandless Farmer and Will Croxton. ", Photo of Ans van Dijk courtesy of Ben van Meerendonk/IISH. Fox on Parkinson's, and maintaining optimism - Jan 22, 2022 10:54 pm UTC. In the immediate aftermath of the war Otto, Anne's father, had trouble finding a publisher for the diary and was told that nobody wanted to read about the Holocaust. The Subdistrict Court dismissed the . In the authors opinion, his mother had an internal conflict that led her to opt for as little attention as possible, practically complete radio silence, from the beginning of the Sixties, he wrote. For decades suspicion centred on a man called Willem Van Maaren, who worked in the warehouse attached to the Franks' hiding place. Now, reports Jon Wertheim for CBS News 60 Minutes, a six-year investigation spearheaded by retired FBI agent Vince Pankoke has pinpointed the likely informant: Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish notary who may have revealed the Franks hiding place to the Nazis to protect his own family from deportation. 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. However, the investigation did not prove his guilt. Titled Anne Frank: A Cold Case Diary, the investigative project was initiated by filmmaker Thijs Bayens and supported through crowd funding. The case was reopened in 1963 after Austrian Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal located Silberbauer in the Vienna police force. Ahlers said he believed his father received money from Frank, because the flow of funds stopped when Frank died in 1980. The men went down with whatever they could use as weapons and Hermann van Pels shouted Police. On this page we distinguish the facts from the unproven theories and the absolute falsehoods. When the people in hiding put it back, it was brutally kicked in again. For instance, the Anne Frank House in 2016 reinvestigated the raid, and in 2017 a former FBI officer announced that he would be looking for the possible traitor of the people in hiding with the help of an international cold case team and new technology. The case. Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation, The Diary of Anne Frank: the critical edition (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1989)., A-version 21 April 1944; B-version, 5 August 1943. The sound might arouse suspicion. They were successful, and the burglars ran off. 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. Many experts believe that someone alerted Nazi authorities to the hiding place, but the identity of the culprit has never been conclusively determined. Three days after Frank wrote these wordsthe final entry in her beloved diarySS officers raided her Amsterdam hiding place and arrested its eight inhabitants. Two other plausible suspects emerged over the years: Lena van Bladeren-Hartog (died 1963) and Tonny Ahlers (1917 - 2000). This went well until Johan fell ill in 1943 and was replaced by Willem van Maaren. Willem van Maaren was the traitor. 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. (public domain), Author Joop van Wijk with the biography of his mother, Bep Voskuijl (courtesy), Bep Voskuijl, lower right, with Otto Frank (middle) and the other Dutch helpers in October, 1945 (public domain), Nelly Voskuijl during World War II (courtesy: Joop van Wijk), View of the secret annex with its blacked out windows at the renovated Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Nov. 21, 2018 (AP Photo/Peter Dejong), The Secret Annex in which Anne Frank wrote her diary, Amsterdam, January 2017 (Matt Lebovic/The Times of Israel), Otto Frank and Bep Voskuijl in 1978 (courtesy: Joop van Wijk), Anne Franks hiding place bedroom during the 1950s (left) and her restored bedroom at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam today (Matt Lebovic/The Times of Israel), Exterior of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, November 2014 (Matt Lebovic/The Times of Israel). Michael J. Ahlers own son endorsed the theory that his father was the culprit, but a subsequent investigation by Dutch authorities found no hard evidence of his involvement. Maarten Kuiper was one of the major betrayers of Jews in hiding during that time.". But all ofthe other people who were in hiding, and their collaborators, theyre just as important; theyre just not as famous.. Nevertheless, researchers do not rule out the potential that Frank and the others were the victims of a betrayal. Voskuijls father, Johan, was also in on the secret of the Jews in hiding. Was the betrayer antisemitic? Sign me up , CNMN Collection But the most innovative aspect of the investigation is its use of big data analysisa technology that has only emerged within the past decadeto comb through reams of documents relevant to the case. I think he got the information from Ahlers," Lee said. Annes relationship with her sister Margot was standoffish, and Voskuijl helped fill some of the gap between them. And who among us, if our families were on the line and heading to extermination camps, wouldnt do what we could? } According to Pankoke, for Van den Bergh to have that level of protection, he must have had some leverage with the Nazis. Their biggest fear was that the police would come back again, but fortunately, that didn't happen. They seem to work from the point of view that he was guilty and [find] a motive to fit that, Somers adds. 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. However, the investigation did not prove his guilt. This should be part of her biography.. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. Among those captured was Anne Frank, a 15-year-old schoolgirl who had spent over two years living in the cramped safehouse with her parents and older sister. Brigit Katz Lee says among the four men who raided the Prinsengracht warehouse on Aug. 4, 1944, was Maarten Kuiper, a Dutch policeman who was a friend of Ahlers. Van Maaren pointed up the stairs, but the police already seemed to know exactly where to go. In June 1947 1,500 copies of the Dutch edition of the diary were produced. He needed the money and he needed the authorities' protection because his own business had gone bankrupt. In 2022,The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigationwhich details the findings of Pankoke's investigationcited Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish businessman and member of the Jewish Council in Holland, as the culprit. Frank and her older sister, Margot, died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp less than a year later, in February 1945. We have investigated over 30 suspects in 20 different scenarios, leaving one scenario we like to refer to as the most likely scenario, filmmaker and team member Thijs Bayens tells Mike Corder of the Associated Press (AP). For two years, Anne Frank's family hid in secret rooms in Amsterdam, knowing that a curtain left open by mistake, a wayward noise or a nervous conspirator's phone call to the Nazis could land. More than 100,000 Dutch Jews - 70 percent of the community - were deported to concentration camps in Germany. But Pankoke said Van Maaren did not hold up as a suspect once investigators examined all the information they found. In 1963, the SS officer who conducted the annex raid told investigators a young woman made the betrayal call. My aunt Willy [Nellys sister] was furious until she died in 2015, just before the publication, he said. There was another important reason Pankoke crossed Van Dijk off the list of suspects. Within several years the book had been translated into German, French and English, and was made into a film in 1959. "I think that people that are looking at this feel, 'Ah, maybe we can learn something if this case is solved,'" Pankoke said. Anne Frank HouseWestermarkt 201016 DK Amsterdam, Ronald Leopold, Executive Director of the Anne Frank House. Jewish Councils were set up in Nazi-controlled cities and pitted members of the Jewish community against one another. Among other theories the Anne Frank House investigated was a 2016reportthat suggests no one was, in fact, responsible for leaking to the Nazis. After all, one of her sisters and her father joined the high-risk effort of hiding, feeding, and sustaining eight Jewish fugitives. In addition to Johan Voskuijls involvement, another of the Voskuijl sisters sewed clothes for the Jews in hiding, making the effort a family affair. Although Joop van Wijks book follows the course of his mothers life, the suspense swirls around his late aunt Nelly, Voskuijls sister. "His own mother said he had a bad character from birth and that he was always parading his Nazi connections," the author told the Guardian yesterday. In this book, he's much more flesh and blood. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Digital Historians have proposed competing hypotheses without definitive proof . Victor Kugler believed he placed small pieces of wood and other items in the warehouse, in such a way that in the morning he could see if anyone had been there. He was the warehouse manager as well as the father of Bep, who worked in the office and was one of the helpers. For decades suspicion centred on a man called Willem Van Maaren, who worked in the warehouse attached to the Franks' hiding place. During his research for the book, Van Wijk learned that Nelly did far more than engage in flirtations with German soldiers. Suddenly, a passer-by used a flashlight to take a look inside. The people in hiding did not sleep a wink for the rest of the night. "After the play and the book, Otto Frank was kind of like a saint. All Rights Reserved. "On face value, you would think, okay, we found the guy," Pankoke said. One day during his youth, Van Wijk heard his mother sobbing in the bathroom. Fox on Parkinson's and how he finds "optimism is sustainable" For decades, historians have debated who betrayed Anne Frank and her family. "Sometimes you can go through the same material with fresh eyes. Her writing created a trail to judicial documents from other parts of the Netherlands, resulting in the latest theory. There's no evidence to indicate that he knew who was hiding at any of these addresses, Pankoke tells 60 Minutes. [But] when van den Bergh lost all his series of protections exempting him from having to go to the camps, he had to provide something valuable to the Nazis that he's had contact with to let him and his wife at that time stay safe.. Suspicion for being the betrayer In several investigations after the war, Van Maaren was the prime suspect for the betrayal of Anne Frank; however Van Maaren publicly denied he was responsible. Not only did he build the famous swinging bookcase to conceal the hiding place, but he served as an unofficial watchman over the annex through his employment in the warehouse below. Van Dijk was executed after the war for collaborating with the Nazis and betraying dozens of fellow Jews. Jennifer Ouellette 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. Hermann van Pels hit the ground with an axe, which finally drove them away. Canadian author details surprising findings of cold-case investigation Rosemary Sullivan's new book documents the roughly five-year Dutch investigation into who. They had come very close to being discovered! Pankoke also showed Wertheim a note, which investigators say Otto Frank received after the war, that specifically names Van den Bergh as the betrayer. I think that nobody can judge van den Bergh who has not been in his position, Sullivan tells the Globe and Mail. A petty thief and unsavory braggart, Van Maaren was investigated shortly after the war, but nothing was proved. Pankoke's team discovered that Van den Bergh, a prominent Jewish businessman in Amsterdam with a wife and kids, lived an open life in the middle of Nazi-occupied Holland at a time when Jews were being deported to concentration camps. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. WIRED Media Group In both cases, the findings were inconclusive. There is no smoking gun because betrayal is circumstantial.. Only the father, Otto Frank, survived. Nelly did it with krauts, the authors father slipped at the table from time to time. Recently translated into English, Van Wijks family account adds what he calls a remarkable name to the list of people suspected of betraying the Secret Annex nearly 75 years ago: his mothers sister. See: Barnouw, David & Stroom, Gerrold van der, Who betrayed Anne Frank? The business continued to operate while the Franks were in hiding, although it apparently was no longer trading with the Germans. Anne was especially sorry about the latter, because it would be difficult to replace that many coupons. Johan was important to them because he could keep an eye on the other warehouse workers to see if they noticed anything. ", By Arthur Max A long-held theory proposed that a new employee at her father's business, Willem van Maaren, tipped off the Nazis. Incorrect password. Scholars and the public alike have long debated the identity of the individual (or individuals) who betrayed Frank, her family and the other residents of the so-called Secret Annex. A petty thief and unsavory braggart, Van Maaren was investigated shortly after the war, but nothing was proved. | The people in hiding slept through the first one, in July 1943. Pankoke and his team eliminated her as a suspect for a few reasons. Willem van Maaren was one of the warehouse staff. Ms Lee also claims that Ahlers was blackmailing Otto, first in 1941 by threatening to release a letter which would have led to his deportation, and astonishingly after the war too and even as recently as 1980 when Otto died. ", 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. At the time of Bep Voskuijls death in 1983, she was the least known of the four Dutch resisters who helped hide Anne Frank. Anne wrote about it in her diary and attributed negative qualifications to him. For more than 20 years, employee Van Maaren was the main suspect. When they returned to the Annex, they found the pages of Anne's diary strewn across the floor, and the duo decided to preserve it for posterity. Last week, the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam released a study that suggests that Anne Frank and the seven others hiding with her were discovered by chance. According to the author, he has mostly been met by cold shoulders. "She was out of town working not close to Amsterdam. Per the New York Times Alexandra Jacobs, the team drew on a combination of big data and artificial intelligence analysis, old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting, interviews, and archival research to narrow down the pool of suspects. | READ MORE. My sister and my oldest brother are still angry with me about the content of the book, Van Wijk told The Times of Israel. "Number one, that during the time period of the betrayal, she wasn't in town," Pankoke explained. display: block; They asked SD chief Willy Lages whether it was common for his former service to jump to action upon receiving a telephone tip-off about people in hiding. [T]he list of people who were accused of being involved in the case is too long to include in its entirety, notes the Anne Frank House on its website. Downstairs they think it is too risky. However, Pankoke told 60 Minutes he trusts the evidence shows those hiding in the annex were betrayed and that the Nazi discovery and arrest wasn't merely a coincidence. 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. A 2015 biography of Bep Voskuijl (co-authored by her son Joop) suggested that one of Bep's sisters, Nelly, may have snitched on the Franks. 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. Multiple people have been suspected of informing the Nazis of the Franks' hiding place, while one theory suggests it may have simply been bad luck. You must not mark someone down in history as the betrayer of Anne Frank if you dont have conclusive evidence for this., the Anne Frank House in 2016 reinvestigated the raid, People in hiding in the occupied Netherlands. For more than seven decades, investigators, researchers and journalists have been trying to shed light on the mysterious circumstances surrounding the arrest of Anne Frank, who famously captured the rise of Nazism in her poignant, posthumously published diary. 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. As he tells Anthony Deutsch and Stephanie van den Berg of Reuters, van den Bergh was a very influential man who couldve avoided deportation for any number of reasons. In Anne's diary it becomes clear that the Annex occupants also did not trust him. Two Dutch investigations, in 1947-48 and 1963-64, targeted the warehouse manager, Willem van Maaren, but were inconclusive. But, the Anne Frank House museum and research center were unable to confirm Van Dijk's involvement after its own investigation. They will also scrutinise the letters of Anne's father, Otto, for clues and examine police transcripts of interviews dating back to the 1940s. Nobody knows for sure who betrayed the Franks, but after doing research, I believe that Tony Ahlers is guilty. Two other plausible suspects emerged over the years: Lena van Bladeren-Hartog (died 1963) and Tonny Ahlers (1917 - 2000). The team hopes to reveal the results of its investigation on August 4, 2019the 75th anniversary of Anne Franks arrest. Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, Miep Gies, and Bep Voskuijl were the only employees who knew where the Franks (and later, the Van Pels family) were hiding. It was very dangerous for the people in hiding, because what could they do if they were discovered? See an Original 1941 Transcript of FDR's Pearl Harbor Speech, What America's Richest Ski Town's Handling of COVID-19 Shows. More than three decades after Elisabeth Bep Voskuijls death, her son co-authored a biography of the least-known among the Dutch resisters who hid Anne Frank and other Jews during the Holocaust. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine All rights reserved. For more than 20 years, employee Van Maaren was the main suspect. Magazines, Digital "There's no doubt he did it," Anton Ahlers Jr. told the Volkskrant newspaper. Records discovered in the Dutch national archives by journalist Pieter van Twisk, co-founder of the research project, seemingly corroborated the claim, suggesting that a member of Amsterdams Jewish Council turned over lists of addresses where Jews were hiding. First published on January 16, 2022 / 8:09 PM. The German-born Frank, who moved to Holland in 1933, ran a spice-trading company that sold goods to the Wehrmacht, the German army. To discover the traitor, Pankoke assembled his own crack team of dogged investigators. In her diary, Anne Frank wrote about Nelly on several occasions. 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. 2002 The Associated Press. Willy Lages, head of the Amsterdam Sicherheitsdienst. All rights reserved. This theory holds that the officers just happened to stumble upon the Jewish families hiding in the attic. Did Willem van Maaren betray the Franks? Did they do it for money? Among Voskuijls other secrets that her son came to know, the clandestine affection shared by his mother and Victor Kugler, one of the other Secret Annex helpers, fills a page of the book. Willem van Maaren was the traitor.
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