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. Brigit Katz is a freelance writer based in Toronto. Pankoke and his colleagues, including an investigative psychologist, a war crimes investigator, historians, criminologists and archivists, approached the historical mystery like a criminal cold case. But soon, it proved she was unable to resolve things that way.. 2002 The Associated Press. Over the years, some 30 different suspects have been suggested as the possible culprit, from the wife of a warehouse employee, to the sister of Otto Franks typist, to Anton Ahlers, a business associate of Otto Frank who was active in the Dutch Nazi party. Left unsigned, the message named van den Bergh as the person whod reported the Franks hiding place to the Nazis. 2023 Cond Nast. Maarten Kuiper was one of the major betrayers of Jews in hiding during that time.". The warehouse workers were not to know that there were people hiding in the Secret Annex. For more than 20 years, employee Van Maaren was the main suspect. She added that the people who were helping to hide the Frank family had been looking into the question of how to get this fellow out of the place from every possible angle. 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. 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. 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. He strongly suspected a warehouse employee named Willem van Maaren, who had sparked concerns among the Franks and the people who helped them hide. A Dutch newspaper, Het Parool, printed a story about Anne's diary which aroused the interest of a publishing house. 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. 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 material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. 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. I think that nobody can judge van den Bergh who has not been in his position, Sullivan tells the Globe and Mail. 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. "She was out of town working not close to Amsterdam. Specifically, the author believes Nelly was involved in the betrayal of the so-called Secret Annex Jews, including the iconic teenage diarist. 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. Magazines, Digital The helpers worked in the office above the warehouse. Co-authored by Belgian journalist Jeroen De Bruyn, Van Wijks book is called, Anne Frank: The Untold Story, with the subtitle, The hidden truth about Elli Vossen, the youngest helper of the Secret Annex. (As 15-year old Anne refined her diary with an eye toward eventual publication, Elli Vossen was the pseudonym she gave to Bep.). Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles, Who Betrayed Anne Frank? Instead, the groups arrest could have been a tragic accident. Van Maaren fought the accusations and rejected a settlement. Was the betrayer antisemitic? The helpers and people in hiding did not trust him. As fast as they could, they all fled back to the hiding place. Ars may earn compensation on sales from links on this site. ), Anne Frank HouseWestermarkt 201016 DK Amsterdam. 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. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Digital More recent research by the Anne Frank House highlights and substantiates the possibility that the reasons for the raid may have been completely different. That report, written by senior historian Gertjan Broek, argued that the German Security Service might have simply stumbled upon the eight Jews while raiding the premises to search for fraudulent food-ration cards. Now, according to Daniel Boffey of the Guardian, a retired FBI agent has launched an investigation into the enduring historical mystery, hoping to find out once and for all who betrayed the young diarist. First published on January 16, 2022 / 8:09 PM. 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. In June 1947 1,500 copies of the Dutch edition of the diary were produced. 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. Registering also lets you comment on articles and helps us improve your experience. The second major burglary in the night of 9 to 10 April 1944 was much more serious. 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. All Rights Reserved. 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 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. This went well until Johan fell ill in 1943 and was replaced by Willem van Maaren. Both theories are being given equal weight by David Barnouw, the historian charged with establishing the truth. Jewish Councils were set up in Nazi-controlled cities and pitted members of the Jewish community against one another. A detailed picture of the interior of the warehouse, reconstruction (1999). The sound might arouse suspicion. The note came to authorities' attention during a 1963 investigation into the. Cookie Policy 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. Instead, he was drawn into solving a famous cold case: the question of who betrayed Anne Frank and her family to the Nazis, leading to the Franks' arrest and deportation to a concentration camp. The business continued to operate while the Franks were in hiding, although it apparently was no longer trading with the Germans. But Pankoke said Van Maaren did not hold up as a suspect once investigators examined all the information they found. 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. Ed Sheeran plays guitar in court in bid to show he didn't steal Marvin Gaye song Wilhelm van Maaren One of the people who has. The case. SD big shot Willy Lages knew that the callerwas a well-known informant. 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. I think he got the information from Ahlers," Lee said. }. They could, for example, not flush the toilet too often, because the water discharge from the Secret Annex ran along the storeroom. In 1963, the National Police Internal Investigation Department investigated the raid. We dont have 100 percent certainty. 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.. Wertheim spoke with Vince Pankoke, a retired FBI agent. Out of all the warehouse staff, only Johan Voskuijl was aware of the presence of the people in hiding. 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. 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. Your California Privacy Rights | Do Not Sell My Personal Information . After tracking down Hulsman for the book, Van Wijk learned of a heated conversation between Nelly and other members of the Voskuijl family during the hiding period. display: block; The Amsterdam home where she and her family hid is today a museum known as the Anne Frank House. And the people in hiding had to be very careful as well. 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. After the war, Frank removed content from Annes diary regarding Nellys collaboration. Van Maaren fought the accusations and rejected a settlement. To discover the traitor, Pankoke assembled his own crack team of dogged investigators. "There was a lot of information that pointed to Tonny Ahlers as being a potential suspect," Pankoke said. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! The proof is not final. Fox on Parkinson's: "Every day it gets tougher" Lee "has no proof, but I can imagine this was the case. They were successful, and the burglars ran off. He needed the money and he needed the authorities' protection because his own business had gone bankrupt. It is my contribution to peace, understanding, respect, and above all loyalty to every human being.. [Otto Frank] might have done this out of loyalty for my mother, wrote Van Wijk. Specifically, Anne referred to the troubles brought upon the Voskuijl family by Nelly, and that the young woman was often away from home.. 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. Fox on Parkinson's and how he finds "optimism is sustainable" For decades, historians have debated who betrayed Anne Frank and her family. It takes just a few seconds. ", By Arthur Max Nelly fell in love with a young Austrian Nazi and had worked for a year on a German air base. Her political leanings had estranged her so much from her family that she left their house. 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. Van Maaren was later the subject of multiple investigations related to the betrayalincluding one by famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthalbut he always maintained his innocence, and none of the cases ever produced any evidence against him. Privacy Statement So now we have a request. 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. 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. 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. As fast as they could, they all fled back to the hiding place. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. He was the warehouse manager as well as the father of Bep, who worked in the office and was one of the helpers. ", Ms Lee is also cautious but believes the secret of who shopped Anne Frank is there to be unearthed. (11 April 1944.) Advertising Notice 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. - Jan 22, 2022 10:54 pm UTC. War diary of life in hiding became world bestseller The Diary of Anne Frank, first published in English in 1952 as The Diary of a Young Girl, is one of the most widely read books in the world. 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. 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. 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. Nevertheless, Lee's book "is interesting because it takes a more balanced view of Otto Frank," Barnouw said. Vince Pankoke, who tracked Colombian drug traffickers in recentyears atthe FBI, will lead a multidisciplinary team of experts, among them historians, psychological profilers and police detectives. On this page we distinguish the facts from the unproven theories and the absolute falsehoods. In both cases, the findings were inconclusive. It probably never will be. The Germans were paying a bounty of 40 guilders per head, which was "a large amount in those days," she said. 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. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. | 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. Frank and her older sister, Margot, died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp less than a year later, in February 1945. 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. Potential informants ruled out by the group ranged from Willem van Maaren, an oft-cited suspect who worked in the warehouse where the Franks were hiding, to Nelly Voskuijl, a Nazi sympathizer and the sister of Secret Annex helper Bep Vokuijl, to Ans van Dijk, a Jewish collaborator whose actions led to the arrest of some 145 people. In Van Wijks assessment, there is no doubt Nelly knew about the Jews in hiding. ", Patricia Bosboom, of the Anne Frank Foundation which maintains the house where Anne hid, said Lee's theory was plausible, "but it's still only a theory. But all ofthe other people who were in hiding, and their collaborators, theyre just as important; theyre just not as famous.. We had all stopped breathing audibly by then, 8 hearts were pounding, footsteps on our stairs, then a rattling on the bookcase door.' A petty thief and unsavory braggart, Van Maaren was investigated shortly after the war, but nothing was proved. 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. Anne Franks father Ottothe only member of the family to survive their subsequent deportation to the concentration campswas among the first to assert that a betrayal had led to their capture. The Subdistrict Court dismissed the . Three days after Frank wrote these wordsthe final entry in her beloved diarySS officers raided her Amsterdam hiding place and arrested its eight inhabitants. The people in hiding shared their suspicion, without knowing him or even having seen him. Willem van Maaren was the traitor. The video above was produced by Brit McCandless Farmer and Will Croxton. Terms of Use Apparently, the police were called next, because a little while later, they came inside to take a look around. Despite two investigations into his . The new investigation does not refute the possibility that the people in hiding were betrayed, but illustrates that other scenarios should also be considered.. Please enter valid email address to continue. Footsteps on the stairways, people shaking the bookcase. 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. Many experts believe that someone alerted Nazi authorities to the hiding place, but the identity of the culprit has never been conclusively determined. 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. But despite suspicions, there was no conclusive evidence van Maaren betrayed the family.