It's been such a long time, and most of the people who knew are dead.". 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. Click the link in that email to complete registration so you can comment. It's possible, Brock suggested, that there was no betrayal, and the SS raid was really part of ongoing attempts to track down purveyors of illegal goods. Anne, who is famous for documenting her time in the Secret Annex in her renowned diary, died of typhus in the spring of 1945 at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Two Dutch investigations, in 1947-48 and 1963-64, targeted the warehouse manager, Willem van Maaren, but were inconclusive. The second major burglary in the night of 9 to 10 April 1944 was much more serious. Downstairs they think it is too risky. Terms of Use Nevertheless, researchers do not rule out the potential that Frank and the others were the victims of a betrayal. Pankoke and his team also spent hours looking for clues in the concealed rooms behind an Amsterdam warehouse, where the Frank family and four other Jews lived hidden away for more than two years. When Frank returned from Auschwitz in 1945, having lost his wife and two daughters, he may have feared his company would be confiscated if his prewar business with Germany became known. Titled Anne Frank: A Cold Case Diary, the investigative project was initiated by filmmaker Thijs Bayens and supported through crowd funding. These include Lena Hartog, the wife of one of the warehouse employees; and Nelly Voskuijl, the sister of one of the Franks helpers. Michael J. [My mother] often lived in the past after the war and mulled over the split she found herself in: the loss of her Jewish loved ones from the Annex on the one hand, and her loyalty to her sister [Nelly] who had proven her services to the occupier on the other hand, wrote Van Wijk. Nelly knew that Bep and her father were helping Jews. Ahlers had so much information on Otto Frank. 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). A detailed picture of the interior of the warehouse, reconstruction (1999). And if what we could do would be to offer anonymous addresses, I dont know that I know many people who could resist it.. Wilhelm van Maaren One of the people who has. "The NIWD has never tried to find out who betrayed the Franks but they have contacts which I don't have and know how archives in the Netherlands work. According to the author, he has mostly been met by cold shoulders. Born in 1949, Van Wijk remembers a childhood shrouded in mystery about what Nelly did during the war. The trove of information is so large that a human in their lifetime might not be able to review it, Pankoke tells Stephanie van den Berg andAnthony Deutsch of Reuters. 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. Two other plausible suspects emerged over the years: Lena van Bladeren-Hartog (died 1963) and Tonny Ahlers (1917 - 2000). 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. When did the Franks decided to move to the Netherlands due to increasing tensions in Germany? As for opportunity, the team examined whether the suspect was in Amsterdam at the time of the August 1944 raid or might have any opportunity to betray the hiding place. Do you rely on The Times of Israel for accurate and insightful news on Israel and the Jewish world? In Joop van Wijks psychological diagnosis of his late mother Bep Voskuijl, she spent her post-war life being her own therapist in a kind of conversation with her alter ego. Van Maaren pointed up the stairs, but the police already seemed to know exactly where to go. Nevertheless, Lee's book "is interesting because it takes a more balanced view of Otto Frank," Barnouw said. After spending two years eluding Nazi capture while in hiding in Amsterdam, the Frank family was discovered on Aug. 4, 1944, and promptly deported from the Netherlands to concentration camps. The people in hiding decided not to wait but to take action. For more than 20 years, employee Van Maaren was the main suspect. believe the most likely culprit is a local Jewish leader named Arnold van den Bergh. See an Original 1941 Transcript of FDR's Pearl Harbor Speech, What America's Richest Ski Town's Handling of COVID-19 Shows. In theory, as Cleve R. Wootson Jr. notes in the Washington Post, the betrayer of the Frank family shouldnt be hard to find; Nazis kept detailed records of all arrests and informants. For decades, historians have debated who betrayed Anne Frank and her family. It was an anonymous phone call in the hot summer of 1944 which led the Gestapo and Dutch security police to the concealed annexe in a canalside house where Anne Frank and her family had hidden for almost two years. The warehouse workers were not to know that there were people hiding in the Secret Annex. Just three days later, German police led by SS officers stormed the Annex, arresting the Franks and the Van Pels family and transferring them to the Westerbork transit camp after interrogation. . 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. It was very dangerous for the people in hiding, because what could they do if they were discovered? 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. The team hopes to reveal the results of its investigation on August 4, 2019the 75th anniversary of Anne Franks arrest. Still, Ronald Leopold, executive director of the museum, notesthat the new investigation did not refute the possibility that the people in hiding were betrayed, but instead illustrated that other scenarios should also be considered.. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. The diary was given to Anne on her 13th birthday, just weeks before she and her family went into hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Willem van Maaren began working as the warehouse manager in 1943, one year before the secret annex was raided by police. Fox on Parkinson's: "Every day it gets tougher". "Otto Frank was of no more use to him in that sense, so he betrayed them," Lee said in the television interview. This week on 60 Minutes, correspondent Jon Wertheim reported on a new look into the decades-old question that has dogged many readers of Anne Frank's diary: Who betrayed the Frank family and led a search team to their secret annex hidden behind a bookcase? 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. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Digital Anne, her sister and parents, were caught in the two-story annex with Hermann van Pels, who had worked in Frank's company, with van Pels' wife and teen-age son, and with Friedrich Pfeffer, a dentist. For decades suspicion centred on a man called Willem Van Maaren, who worked in the warehouse attached to the Franks' hiding place. How did Fritz Pfeffer know the Franks? - Atheists for human rights Out of all the warehouse staff, only Johan Voskuijl was aware of the presence of the people in hiding. 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. One day during his youth, Van Wijk heard his mother sobbing in the bathroom. There is no smoking gun because betrayal is circumstantial.. But soon, it proved she was unable to resolve things that way.. "Van den Bergh wasn't deported," said Pieter van Twisk, a veteran Dutch journalist who co-founded the investigative project and led the research team. Canadian author details surprising findings of cold-case investigation Rosemary Sullivan's new book documents the roughly five-year Dutch investigation into who. Instead, the groups arrest could have been a tragic accident. All rights reserved. Lages answered that the credibility of the tip-off would have been checked first, unless it came from an informant who had proved to be reliable before. For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. He worked in the same building where the Franks were hiding.. For example, it is certain that two representatives from whom the helpers bought illegal coupons were arrested for black marketeering. Was the betrayer antisemitic? In the years since Anne Franks diary was published, investigators and historians have proposed several other potential informants. The case. Historians have proposed competing hypotheses without definitive proof . Lee "has no proof, but I can imagine this was the case. "However, after Otto Frank went into hiding, Tonny Ahlers was out doing other things in different parts of the city. When the arrest of Anne Frank and the people who hid with her took place, Van Maaren worked as the manager of the warehouse of Opekta and Gies & Co, in whose buildings the Secret Annex was situated. In 1963, the SS officer who conducted the annex raid told investigators a young woman made the betrayal call. Did willem van maaren betray the franks? - delasd.vhfdental.com 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.. 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. Registering also lets you comment on articles and helps us improve your experience. For decades, historians have debated who betrayed Anne Frank and her family. One of the reasons his aunt has been overlooked by past investigators, believes Van Wijk, involves his familys darkest secret. Advertising Notice Their mother, Edith, had died of starvation the year before. January 16, 2022 / 8:09 PM We question several elements of the investigation: read our statement. I think he got the information from Ahlers," Lee said. 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. (Amsterdam: NIOD, 2003). There was more going on in that building than just the hiding of Jews. You have reached your limit of free articles. One of the people who has been most often scrutinized as the potential betrayer is Wilhelm van Maaren, a worker in the warehouse building where the Franks hid. Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles, Who Betrayed Anne Frank? Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Van Wijk had always been told Nelly did not return to the Netherlands until the end of 1944 or early in 1945 after the betrayal of the annex. Argumentative Essay: Who Betrayed The Franks | ipl.org His aunts past as a Nazi collaborator, as well as her whereabouts during a key part of the hiding period, had been covered up by the family. 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. Ahlers was among the suspects Pankoke and his team investigated and ultimately ruled out. There was another important reason Pankoke crossed Van Dijk off the list of suspects. The Anne Frank House has opened its archives to Pankoke and his team, and, according to Boffey of the Guardian, welcomes the new research initiative. display: none; In 2003, Carol Ann Lee came to a different conclusion in her biography of Otto Frank: the culprit was a man named Anton "Tonny" Ahlers, a member of the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands. 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. Willy Lages, head of the Amsterdam Sicherheitsdienst. Who betrayed Anne Frank? A new book tracks history's most - MSN Nelly did it with krauts, the authors father slipped at the table from time to time. ", Ms Lee is also cautious but believes the secret of who shopped Anne Frank is there to be unearthed. They could, for example, not flush the toilet too often, because the water discharge from the Secret Annex ran along the storeroom.
