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. Bruce Springsteen on "Nebraska," and the emergence of Springsteen the poet In other words: If a call was actually made that morning, and the response was immediate, then one may conclude that the informant was known and reliable, according to Lages. Cookie Policy We are saved, go on saving us!That is all we can say. (Anne Frank, 11 April 1944. Clearly, the museums report concludes, the last word about that fateful summer day in 1944 has not yet been said.. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. (11 April 1944.) Barnouw, the historian, said the blackmail supposition is thin. In that statement we indicated the need for further research. It claims that Ahlers - then a 26-year- old petty thief - had fallen on hard times by 1944 and desperately needed the bounty paid to Dutch civilians who exposed Jews in their midst. Click the link in that email to complete your registration. And, during a 1994 lecture, Secret Annex helper Miep Gies let slip that the informant died prior to 1960. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. He strongly suspected a warehouse employee named Willem van Maaren, who had sparked concerns among the Franks and the people who helped them hide. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. ", 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. Willem van Maaren was the traitor. As fast as they could, they all fled back to the hiding place. "They were friends. After all, one of her sisters and her father joined the high-risk effort of hiding, feeding, and sustaining eight Jewish fugitives. Registering also lets you comment on articles and helps us improve your experience. 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. For more than 20 years, employee Van Maaren was the main suspect. It's been such a long time, and most of the people who knew are dead.". Updated: March 29, 2023 | Original: November 1, 2017. Although Joop van Wijks book follows the course of his mothers life, the suspense swirls around his late aunt Nelly, Voskuijls sister. The Anne Frank House undertook its own investigation and arrived at a surprising new theory in 2017, thanks to the efforts of a historian named Gertjan Brock. The case. 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. More recent research by the Anne Frank House highlights and substantiates the possibility that the reasons for the raid may have been completely different. For decades suspicion centred on a man called Willem Van Maaren, who worked in the warehouse attached to the Franks' hiding place. Was the betrayer antisemitic? The case was reopened in 1963 after Austrian Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal located Silberbauer in the Vienna police force. The sound might arouse suspicion. A petty thief and unsavory braggart, Van Maaren was investigated shortly after the war, but nothing was proved. Terrified, the people in hiding kept very quiet. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1/1/20) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1/1/20) and Ars Technica Addendum (effective 8/21/2018). That was a major setback, because Van Maaren was curious, and he noticed that people had been in the building after closing time. 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. A long-held theory proposed that a new employee at her father's business, Willem van Maaren, tipped off the Nazis. 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. 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. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine [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. We question several elements of the investigation: read our statement. Sign in to stop seeing this, Netanyahu calls for national unity at Independence Day ceremony, Five wounded in terror car-ramming near busy Jerusalem market, Godfather meets Shtisel: New Netflix thriller delves into Haredi diamond dealers, 15,000 attend controversial joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day event. Advertising Notice A six-year investigation posits that Arnold van den Bergh disclosed the diarists hiding place to protect his family from deportation, On August 1, 1944, 15-year-old Anne Frank penned a journal entry describing herself as a bundle of contradictions. Reflecting on the warring sides of her personality, the Jewish diarist wrote, Im guided by the pure Anne within, but on the outside Im nothing but a frolicsome little goat tugging at its tether. She concluded with a pledge to keep trying to find a way to become what Id like to be and what I could be if if only there were no other people in the world.. Only one of the people in hiding, Franks father, Otto, survived World War II. 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). 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. This theory holds that the officers just happened to stumble upon the Jewish families hiding in the attic. Lee said Ahlers probably decided to tip off the authorities after his own company slid into bankruptcy and he no longer needed to do business with Frank's company. He vehemently denied any involvement and said that Victor Kugler had known about the pieces of wood and other things. Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles, Who Betrayed Anne Frank? On 17 January 2022 the cold case teampresentedtheir findings. As the scarcity increased during the war, so did the number of burglaries. Former FBI special agent Vincent Pankoke was looking forward to a relaxing retirement hanging out at the beach when he left the agency. Anne Frank is a symbol of the youth and what the people who were in hiding went through, Pankoke said. Many experts believe that someone alerted Nazi authorities to the hiding place of Frank and her family, but the culprit has never been determined. Certainly, Maarten Kuiper received money for the betrayals he made.". Stockroom manager Willem van Maaren was suspected of the betrayal for many years, although he never sided with the Nazis. Terms of Use Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday. However, the investigation did not prove his guilt. 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. Suddenly, a passer-by used a flashlight to take a look inside. After the war, Frank removed content from Annes diary regarding Nellys collaboration. Specifically, Anne referred to the troubles brought upon the Voskuijl family by Nelly, and that the young woman was often away from home.. Otto, for his part, never publicly named van den Bergh, who died in 1950, as the informant. Fox on Parkinson's and how he finds "optimism is sustainable", Ed Sheeran plays guitar in court in bid to show he didn't steal Marvin Gaye song, Preview: Michael J. As fast as they could, they all fled back to the hiding place. display: block; The eight people in hiding did not trust him, and often felt suspicious of him. 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. 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. 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. #inline-recirc-item--id-a4ef05fe-8c88-11e2-b06b-024c619f5c3d ~ .item:nth-child(5) { In Van Wijks assessment, there is no doubt Nelly knew about the Jews in hiding. "Otto Frank was of no more use to him in that sense, so he betrayed them," Lee said in the television interview. The second theory, put forward by Austrian writer Melissa Mller, has a cleaning lady in the warehouse, Lena Hartog, as the traitor. During his research for the book, Van Wijk learned that Nelly did far more than engage in flirtations with German soldiers. 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. Anne was especially sorry about the latter, because it would be difficult to replace that many coupons. In addition to Johan Voskuijls involvement, another of the Voskuijl sisters sewed clothes for the Jews in hiding, making the effort a family affair. It takes just a few seconds. 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. 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. The people in hiding slept through the first one, in July 1943. Hermann van Pels hit the ground with an axe, which finally drove them away. Then, in 2016, a team of investigators, led by a veteran FBI agent, decided to bring modern. "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. At the time of Bep Voskuijls death in 1983, she was the least known of the four Dutch resisters who helped hide Anne Frank. Cookie Settings, NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Five Places Where You Can Still Find Gold in the United States, Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Otherand the Birds Loved It, Balto's DNA Provides a New Look at the Intrepid Sled Dog, The Science of California's 'Super Bloom,' Visible From Space, What We're Still Learning About Rosalind Franklins Unheralded Brilliance. 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. 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.". Michael J. 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. Preview: Michael J. .component--type-recirculation .item:nth-child(5) { This is not the first time that hopes of unlocking the mystery have been raised. Johannes Kleiman (on the left) and Victor Kugler in front of Prinsengracht 263, 1954. Photo collection: Anne Frank Stichting, Amsterdam / photographer: Allard Bovenberg, All 8 of us were just pleased that we had slept so well that night and not heard a thing., We had all stopped breathing audibly by then., Reconstruction: the arrest of the people in hiding. The Subdistrict Court dismissed the . The people in hiding did not sleep a wink for the rest of the night. First published on January 16, 2022 / 8:09 PM. Later, when father Johan Voskuijl and sister Bep were involved in hiding Jews on the Prinsengracht, Nelly was working for the Nazis across town. These are two of the most frequently asked questions when it comes to Anne Frank. Join the Ars Orbital Transmission mailing list to get weekly updates delivered to your inbox. But the evidence against Van Maaren was again inconclusive, and he died in 1971 professing his innocence. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Digital Fox on Parkinson's: "Every day it gets tougher". Meilan Solly When the people in hiding put it back, it was brutally kicked in again. My mother had lots of troubles with Nelly during the war and after the war, Van Wijk told The Times of Israel. 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. He needed the money and he needed the authorities' protection because his own business had gone bankrupt. The encounter ended with Nelly shouting, Just go to your Jews!. Fox on Parkinson's, and maintaining optimism, Bruce Springsteen on "Nebraska," and the emergence of Springsteen the poet, Michael J. "On face value, you would think, okay, we found the guy," Pankoke said. Nelly fell in love with a young Austrian Nazi and had worked for a year on a German air base. You couldn't just do that.". There is no smoking gun because betrayal is circumstantial.. Did they do it for money? 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. He and his team spent five years poring over every bit of pertinent material, setting up an extensive online database, and developing an AI program to help them sift through it all and find new connections. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. But Dutch government historians disclosed yesterday that two new theories about who betrayed 15-year-old Jewish schoolgirl Anne Frank to the Nazis in occupied Amsterdam are so compelling that they are reopening their investigations. On this page we distinguish the facts from the unproven theories and the absolute falsehoods. / CBS News. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. More than 100,000 Dutch Jews - 70 percent of the community - were deported to concentration camps in Germany. Who betrayed Anne Frank? Ad Choices, Katie Falkenberg/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images. } Most were gassed with brutal assembly-line efficiency. The case against Ahlers fell apart, Pankoke told Wertheim, when it came to knowledge. 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. 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. See: Barnouw, David & Stroom, Gerrold van der, Who betrayed Anne Frank? The book by Carol Ann Lee, a British author living in Amsterdam, says the likely informant was a former business associate of Otto Frank, Anne's father. 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 new investigation does not refute the possibility that the people in hiding were betrayed, but illustrates that other scenarios should also be considered.. But despite suspicions, there was no conclusive evidence van Maaren betrayed the family. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! When did the Van Pels (Van . Years later, after Anne Frank became famous for her diary, readers wondered what had gone wrong. That was quite a feat. Previously, Voskuijl and others had placed suspicion on a disgruntled male warehouse employee, Willem van Maaren. Willem van Maaren was the traitor. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Willem van Maaren was one of the warehouse staff. Titled Anne Frank: A Cold Case Diary, the investigative project was initiated by filmmaker Thijs Bayens and supported through crowd funding. 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.. | Gies and Voskuijl were questioned but not detained. 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. On Aug. 4, 1944, they went to investigate 263 Prinsengrachtthe same building where Anne and her family were hidingafter receiving tips of fraudulent food-ration cards and illegal employment happening there. Your Privacy Rights Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany, but she and her family fled the country and settled in Amsterdam after Adolf Hitler came to power. 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. Another book posited that the suspect might be a Jewish woman. Two other plausible suspects emerged over the years: Lena van Bladeren-Hartog (died 1963) and Tonny Ahlers (1917 - 2000). Prior to that, Frank always said he did not want to know who betrayed his family. "Number one, that during the time period of the betrayal, she wasn't in town," Pankoke explained. Anne wrote about it in her diary and attributed negative qualifications to him. 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. 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. 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. Years later, after Anne Frank became famous for her diary, readers wondered what had gone wrong. 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. 2023 Cond Nast. 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. Sign me up , CNMN Collection "And maybe to the Holocaust survivors that are still out there, they understand that somebody still cares that these mysteries are solved. "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. Nevertheless, researchers do not rule out the potential that Frank and the others were the victims of a betrayal. So the team has enlisted the Amsterdam-based data company Xomnia to develop algorithms that will analyze the documents, andperhapsreveal connections that have never been noticed before. #inline-recirc-item--id-a4ef05fe-8c88-11e2-b06b-024c619f5c3d, #right-rail-recirc-item--id-a4ef05fe-8c88-11e2-b06b-024c619f5c3d { According to Gerald Kremer's The Backyard of the Secret Annex, the Guardian reports, the Franks were betrayed by Anna "Ans" van Dijk, a Jewish woman executed in 1948 for her collaboration in. Advertising Notice But then we'll want to be. Privacy Statement My aunt Willy [Nellys sister] was furious until she died in 2015, just before the publication, he said.
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