Already a member? 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Who betrayed the Frank family and why? And then they heard the footsteps leave again. Fox on Parkinson's: "Every day it gets tougher" Ahlers himself was jailed for collaboration after the war and bizarrely Otto wrote letters to the authorities pleading for his release. 2023 Cond Nast. The eight people in hiding did not trust him, and often felt suspicious of him. Willem Gerardus van Maaren (August 10, 1895- November 28, 1971) was the person most often suggested as the betrayer of Anne Frank. 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. "There's no smoking gun but we are going to make a comparison of the two theories and see what we can rule out and in. Among other theories the Anne Frank House investigated was a 2016reportthat suggests no one was, in fact, responsible for leaking to the Nazis. Your Privacy Rights Downstairs they think it is too risky. Were they betrayed? You have reached your limit of free articles. They will also scrutinise the letters of Anne's father, Otto, for clues and examine police transcripts of interviews dating back to the 1940s. 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. He only stuck to the logic of assumptions of which he did not know the validity, nor did he need to know the validity in order to give a reasoned answer. Hermann van Pels hit the ground with an axe, which finally drove them away. Meilan Solly January 16, 2022 / 8:09 PM ", Ms Lee is also cautious but believes the secret of who shopped Anne Frank is there to be unearthed. One of the reasons his aunt has been overlooked by past investigators, believes Van Wijk, involves his familys darkest secret. The Germans were paying a bounty of 40 guilders per head, which was "a large amount in those days," she said. A Dutch newspaper, Het Parool, printed a story about Anne's diary which aroused the interest of a publishing house. But Anne was not yet famous and staff were overworked. In this book, he's much more flesh and blood. That same week, the Franks were arrestedwhile Van Dijk was away in the Hague. Only when he began research for the book in 2010 was the long-time marketing professional able to locate documents that contradict the family backstory on Nelly. There were two separate official investigations into who may have betrayed the family: one in 1947-1948 and the second (conducted by the Dutch police) in 1963-1964. Although Joop van Wijks book follows the course of his mothers life, the suspense swirls around his late aunt Nelly, Voskuijls sister. 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. 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. Despite two investigations into his . Join the Ars Orbital Transmission mailing list to get weekly updates delivered to your inbox. The helpers worked in the office above the warehouse. 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. Brigit Katz is a freelance writer based in Toronto. 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. In the years since Anne Franks diary was published, investigators and historians have proposed several other potential informants. But Barnouw said Lee's case sounded credible enough for the institute to reopen its investigation into the betrayal. Even during the early days of the war, the Voskuijl family faced trouble with Nelly. "We can never be just Dutch, or just English, or whatever, we will always be Jews as well. 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 a 2002 biography of Anne Frank's father, Otto, author Carol Ann Lee suggested the betrayer might be Tonny Ahlers, a Dutch National Socialist.
Who betrayed Anne Frank? Artificial intelligence could finally solve As The New York Timesreported, they hoped to bring new technology, including forensic accounting, computer modeling and even crowd sourcing research, to examine existing evidence such as Anne Franks diary and the Amsterdam building where the Franks hid. Photo collection: Nationaal Archief/ Anefo, access number 2.24.01.04, item number 919-6449. Cookie Policy 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. 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. In order to protect his own family, van den Bergh may have handed over lists of addresses where fellow Jews were hiding to the Nazis. 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.
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. - Jan 22, 2022 10:54 pm UTC. The Subdistrict Court dismissed the . 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. Unlike other news outlets, we havent put up a paywall. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. 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. 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.
Searching for Anne Frank's betrayer, 80 years on - The Times Ahlers was a member of the Dutch Nazi NSB movement, appeared in Nazi propaganda films and was thrown out of his lodgings after his landlady discovered a swastika flag on the wall and a uniform bearing SS insignia hanging in his wardrobe. The researchers also investigated the theory, first raised by scholars at the Anne Frank House in 2016, that the SS discovered the hiding place by chance while searching the warehouse for evidence of illegal work and ration coupon fraud. Out of the seven others who hid with her, her father, Otto Frank, was the only one who survived the Holocaust. He found Voskuijl in a desperate state with a mouthful of sleeping pills. She made him keep the episode their secret, he wrote. The second theory, put forward by Austrian writer Melissa Mller, has a cleaning lady in the warehouse, Lena Hartog, as the traitor. It's been such a long time, and most of the people who knew are dead.". Willem van Maaren was one of the warehouse staff. The burglars had ripped a panel out of the warehouses street door in order to get in. Another book posited that the suspect might be a Jewish woman. Van Dijk was executed after the war for collaborating with the Nazis and betraying dozens of fellow Jews. 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. In 1947, Otto Frank and the helpers filed a complaint against him with the political police on suspicion of betrayal. "And we went into the city archive and found proof that actually he was 'Aryanized,' so he lost his Jewish identity during the war. Willem van Maaren was the traitor. Do you rely on The Times of Israel for accurate and insightful news on Israel and the Jewish world? He stole goods and was generally considered dishonest. The people in hiding did not sleep a wink for the rest of the night. It probably never will be. Nevertheless, researchers do not rule out the potential that Frank and the others were the victims of a betrayal. In that statement we indicated the need for further research. In 1963, the SS officer who conducted the annex raid told investigators a young woman made the betrayal call. Willem van Maaren was the traitor. Her father, Otto Frank, survived, and spent the rest of his life trying to discover who had betrayed his family. The subject is still being researched. 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. It takes just a few seconds. And the people in hiding had to be very careful as well. We dont have 100 percent certainty. Per BBC, he wasn't deported and had lost his Jewish identity during the war. The helpers did not trust warehouse worker Willem van Maaren. "I looked at his files in The Hague because after the war he was convicted of betraying people and he was jailed," Lee said in an interview for a Dutch television documentary. Titled Anne Frank: A Cold Case Diary, the investigative project was initiated by filmmaker Thijs Bayens and supported through crowd funding. It has been widely believed that Willem van Maaren, a warehouse employee who worked for Otto Frank, outed the Frank family. Ahlers said he believed his father received money from Frank, because the flow of funds stopped when Frank died in 1980. To discover the traitor, Pankoke assembled his own crack team of dogged investigators. 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. Now, a biographer of Anne Frank has published a new theory which has intrigued the nation and revived a dark chapter in Dutch history - the failure to protect Jewish citizens from the genocidal Nazis. 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. The encounter ended with Nelly shouting, Just go to your Jews!. The enduring mystery of the Anne Frank story is, who betrayed her to the Nazis? When the people in hiding put it back, it was brutally kicked in again. Specifically, Anne referred to the troubles brought upon the Voskuijl family by Nelly, and that the young woman was often away from home.. 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. Suddenly, a passer-by used a flashlight to take a look inside. "There's no smoking gun, and the theory has too many loose ends," he said. The four supplied the families with food and other necessities, knowing full well that they could be condemned to death by the Nazis for aiding Jews. Investigators began taking a fresh look at the case in 2016, hoping to provide new answers. Stockroom manager Willem van Maaren was suspected of the betrayal for many years, although he never sided with the Nazis.