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.. [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. Were they betrayed? The encounter ended with Nelly shouting, Just go to your Jews!. 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. Fox on Parkinson's: "Every day it gets tougher" According to the researchers, the German Sicherheitsdienst police who discovered the family usually investigated cases involving cash and securities, not Jews in hiding. There was another important reason Pankoke crossed Van Dijk off the list of suspects. "There was a lot of information that pointed to Tonny Ahlers as being a potential suspect," Pankoke said. 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. I think he got the information from Ahlers," Lee said. At one point, Kugler was prepared to end his marriage in order to move to South America with Voskuijl, but she did not want to wreck their marriage. All Rights Reserved. Johan was important to them because he could keep an eye on the other warehouse workers to see if they noticed anything. Unlike other news outlets, we havent put up a paywall. When the people in hiding put it back, it was brutally kicked in again. As the scarcity increased during the war, so did the number of burglaries. Did Willem van Maaren betray Anne Frank? Terms of Use Jewish Councils were set up in Nazi-controlled cities and pitted members of the Jewish community against one another. In 2022, The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation which details the findings of Pankoke's investigationcited Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish businessman and member of the. "And maybe to the Holocaust survivors that are still out there, they understand that somebody still cares that these mysteries are solved. Van Maaren pointed up the stairs, but the police already seemed to know exactly where to go. But Anne was not yet famous and staff were overworked. [Otto Frank] might have done this out of loyalty for my mother, wrote Van Wijk. "But whenever you actually dig into all the evidence, you find out that he wasn't antisemitic. 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. In her diary, Anne Frank wrote about Nelly on several occasions. But, the Anne Frank House museum and research center were unable to confirm Van Dijk's involvement after its own investigation. He also was distrustful of the Ahlers family, saying they simply may be seeking notoriety. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation, https://www.history.com/news/who-betrayed-anne-frank. A long-held theory proposed that a new employee at her father's business, Willem van Maaren, tipped off the Nazis. "They were friends. These include Lena Hartog, the wife of one of the warehouse employees; and Nelly Voskuijl, the sister of one of the Franks helpers. 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. Previously, Voskuijl and others had placed suspicion on a disgruntled male warehouse employee, Willem van Maaren. Who betrayed the Franks and why? Out of all the warehouse staff, only Johan Voskuijl was aware of the presence of the people in hiding. Willem Gerardus van Maaren (August 10, 1895- November 28, 1971) was the person most often suggested as the betrayer of Anne Frank. 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. display: none; 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. ", By Arthur Max "Everyone, including his own family, condemned him as distinctly anti-Jewish and a thoroughly unpleasant character.". 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. 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. 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. See: Barnouw, David & Stroom, Gerrold van der, Who betrayed Anne Frank? Michael J. Certainly, Maarten Kuiper received money for the betrayals he made.". There is no smoking gun because betrayal is circumstantial.. Dutch police launched two separate investigations focusing on van Maaren, but did not uncover any conclusive evidence. The second major burglary in the night of 9 to 10 April 1944 was much more serious. Not only was she carousing with German soldiers, but Nellys rowdy behavior earned her a stint in police custody. Anne chronicled their lives in the Annex in her diary for the next two years, making her final entry on August 1, 1944. 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. It was edited by Will Croxton. 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. Apparently, the burglars were still about. In a 2018 book,The Backyard of the Secret Annex,Gerard Kremer, the son of a member of the Dutch resistance of the same name, argues that a Jewish woman,Ans van Dijk, was responsible for the Franks' capture. During the next six months a team of experts from the Netherlands' Institute for War Documentation (NIWD) will pore over government records drawn up at the end of the war which detail the extent of Dutch collaboration with the Nazis. In the years following Nelly Voskuijls death in 2001, Van Wijk attempted to learn more about the relationship between his mother and his aunt from members of the large family. 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Titled Anne Frank: A Cold Case Diary, the investigative project was initiated by filmmaker Thijs Bayens and supported through crowd funding. (Amsterdam: NIOD, 2003). During his research for the book, Van Wijk learned that Nelly did far more than engage in flirtations with German soldiers. One year before his death in 1980, Frank told an interviewer he believed a woman made the call to the Gestapo. The Germans were paying a bounty of 40 guilders per head, which was "a large amount in those days," she said. This went well until Johan fell ill in 1943 and was replaced by Willem van Maaren. It's been such a long time, and most of the people who knew are dead.". The eight people in hiding did not trust him, and often felt suspicious of him. Although Miep Gies is the best-remembered of the Dutch helpers, Voskuijl was the closest to Anne in age and temperament. Anne wrote about it in her diary and attributed negative qualifications to him. But all ofthe other people who were in hiding, and their collaborators, theyre just as important; theyre just not as famous.. Pankoke's team wondered: Did the suspected betrayer know the location of the secret annex? The business continued to operate while the Franks were in hiding, although it apparently was no longer trading with the Germans. Suddenly, a passer-by used a flashlight to take a look inside. All Rights Reserved. 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. 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. Not even the arresting officer questioned after the war by Simon Wiesenthal, the Austrian Nazi hunter, could say who the caller was and investigators are convinced that no written record of the caller's identity exists. 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 Frank HouseWestermarkt 201016 DK Amsterdam. Although the team's evidence points to Van den Bergh as the prime suspect, they concede this is a circumstantial case. Although he heard about Nellys romantic liaisons with Germans while growing up, Van Wijk was never told about his aunts role as a Nazi collaborator. 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Investigating who betrayed Anne Frank and her family to the Nazis Willem van Maaren began working as the warehouse manager in 1943, one year before the secret annex was raided by police. Downstairs they think it is too risky. Anne Frank May Not Have Been Betrayed - Smithsonian Magazine More recent research by the Anne Frank House highlights and substantiates the possibility that the reasons for the raid may have been completely different. On a warm summer day in 1944, four German and Dutch security police pulled up to the warehouse at 263 Prinsengracht and asked the employee, Willem Van Maaren, where the Jews were hiding. Investigators Are Turning to Big Data to Find Who Betrayed Anne Frank. Fox on Parkinson's, and maintaining optimism, Bruce Springsteen on "Nebraska," and the emergence of Springsteen the poet, Michael J. But the evidence against Van Maaren was again inconclusive, and he died in 1971 professing his innocence. Van Maaren was suspicious and would set "traps" to . In a 2002 biography of Anne Frank's father, Otto, author Carol Ann Lee suggested the betrayer might be Tonny Ahlers, a Dutch National Socialist. The sound might arouse suspicion. Investigators began taking a fresh look at the case in 2016, hoping to provide new answers. Van Maaren fought the accusations and rejected a settlement. Cookie Settings, 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. 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. The warehouse workers were not to know that there were people hiding in the Secret Annex. The authors suspicions were deepened during interviews he conducted for the biography. On a warm August morning in 1944, SS officers stormed into an Amsterdam warehouse and arrested Anne Frank, her parents, her sister and four other Jews who had been hiding in a secret annex at the back of the building. It was very dangerous for the people in hiding, because what could they do if they were discovered? Then, the team considered the motive. And then they heard the footsteps leave again. Shortly after World War II ended, Otto Frank suggested that the culprit was Willem van Maaren, a warehouse employee who was not in on the secret. Terrified, the people in hiding kept very quiet. 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. 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. He was the warehouse manager as well as the father of Bep, who worked in the office and was one of the helpers. The book, released in English yesterday, points the finger of blame at a man called Anton Ahlers, a business associate of Otto's and a committed Nazi. Trending News Who betrayed the Franks and why? - Sage-Advices 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. Since then, several independent investigations have identified different possible suspects. "I think that people that are looking at this feel, 'Ah, maybe we can learn something if this case is solved,'" Pankoke said. Who Betrayed Anne Frank? Part One : r/UnresolvedMysteries - Reddit "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. 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. Anne died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen in the spring of 1945, just weeks before the camp was liberated. In 1963, the SS officer. Nelly fell in love with a young Austrian Nazi and had worked for a year on a German air base. Anne Frank Study Guide: Deaths, Dates, Betrayal, and History - Quizlet In 1963, the SS officer who conducted the annex raid told investigators a young woman made the betrayal call. Even during the early days of the war, the Voskuijl family faced trouble with Nelly. Only the father, Otto Frank, survived. For as little as $6/month, you will: Were really pleased that youve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month. 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. Daniel Finkelstein reflects on the tragedy of the Frank family as a new book, published this week, delves into the riddle of who revealed their . 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. 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. Canadian author details surprising findings of cold-case investigation Rosemary Sullivan's new book documents the roughly five-year Dutch investigation into who. It was only accessible via a door on the landing, kept hidden by a bookcase. Barnouw, the historian, said the blackmail supposition is thin. A new book suggests the informant may have been a business associate of Anne's father, the only family member to survive World War II. 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. 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. In April 1944 Anne wrote: "One day this terrible war will be over. He had previously asked questions about the Annex and tried in many ways to see if there was anyone who had entered the building after closing hours. 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. 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. 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. Fox on Parkinson's, and maintaining optimism Their mother, Edith, had died of starvation the year before. Click the link in that email to complete your registration. The note came to authorities' attention during a 1963 investigation into the. Wootson Jr. of the Post reports that the teams work will be chronicled in a podcast and, possibly, a documentary. He found Voskuijl in a desperate state with a mouthful of sleeping pills. She made him keep the episode their secret, he wrote. 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. It takes just a few seconds. Immediately after the war, Willem van Maaren was the only suspect in the investigation into the raid of the Secret Annex by the Sicherheitsdienst. Kugler was a married man, and he never shared the secret of the hidden Jews with his wife, wrote Van Wijk. Historians made no further headway. display: block; So now we have a request. 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. 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? 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. Nelly did it with krauts, the authors father slipped at the table from time to time. Left unsigned, the message named van den Bergh as the person who'd reported the Franks' hiding place to the Nazis. Searching for Anne Frank's betrayer, 80 years on. These are two of the most frequently asked questions when it comes to Anne Frank. Hermann van Pels hit the ground with an axe, which finally drove them away. Privacy Statement He stole goods and was generally considered dishonest. But a few years after the war, reports Hanneloes Pen for Dutch newspaper Het Parool, he told a journalist that his family had been betrayed by a member of the Jewish community. Nevertheless, researchers do not rule out the potential that Frank and the others were the victims of a betrayal. Michael J. It is believed, however, that documents pertaining to Anne Frank and other residents of the annex were destroyed in a 1940s bombing. Pankoke and his team eliminated her as a suspect for a few reasons. A detailed picture of the interior of the warehouse, reconstruction (1999). A petty thief and unsavory braggart, Van Maaren was investigated shortly after the war, but nothing was proved. 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. Thats why we started the Times of Israel eleven years ago - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world. Lena had already lost her son in the war, the theory goes, and her husband worked for Otto's food preservatives firm. Kremer's father was an acquaintance ofVan Dijk in Amsterdam and Kremer writes that in early August 1944, his father overheardVan Dijkspeaking about Prinsengracht, where the Franks were hiding, in Nazi offices. 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. While his mother referred to as Elli Vossen in The Diary of Anne Frank risked her life to hide eight Jews, his aunt had behaved shamefully during the occupation of the Netherlands, it was whispered. Then, in 2016, a team of investigators, led by a veteran FBI agent, decided to bring modern. The enduring mystery of the Anne Frank story is, who betrayed her to the Nazis? }. As the whole world now knows, 15-year-old Anne Frank died (likely of typhoid fever) a day after her older sister, Margot, at the Bergen-Belsen death camp between February and April 1945. | Suddenly, a passer-by used a flashlight to take a look inside. I think that nobody can judge van den Bergh who has not been in his position, Sullivan tells the Globe and Mail. Explanations for the discovery are mainly based on testimonies, because no documents about the raid on the Secret Annex have been preserved. 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. I take both of these theories seriously enough to put them on paper but that is different from actually saying what happened. Lee says Ahlers not only turned in the Frank family, but may have blackmailed Otto Frank for years after the war, receiving payment for his silence about Frank's business with Nazi Germany at the beginning of World War II. (11 April 1944.) 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. 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. Advertising Notice If so, please join The Times of Israel Community. 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. 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 groups hideout was located inside a warehouse he had once owned, and they were aided by several of his employees as well as other Dutch sympathizers.