As fast as they could, they all fled back to the hiding place. Beginning in 2016, Pankoke led a team of expert investigators equipped with modern crime-solving techniques to try to crack the case. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! The German-born Frank, who moved to Holland in 1933, ran a spice-trading company that sold goods to the Wehrmacht, the German army. It was clear that Tonny Ahlers had no knowledge that Otto Frank and the others were hiding in the annex.". "And we went into the city archive and found proof that actually he was 'Aryanized,' so he lost his Jewish identity during the war. Photo collection: Nationaal Archief/ Anefo, access number 2.24.01.04, item number 919-6449. 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. Experts have discovered, for instance, the identity of a person who betrayed at least one other family to the Nazis. 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. The proof is not final. Ahlers said he believed his father received money from Frank, because the flow of funds stopped when Frank died in 1980. | 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. It has been translated into around 67 languages and has sold over 31 million copies. Later, when father Johan Voskuijl and sister Bep were involved in hiding Jews on the Prinsengracht, Nelly was working for the Nazis across town. It made sense that two people who were constantly in each others vicinity and shared the role of helper of Jews, grew closer, he wrote. He was the warehouse manager as well as the father of Bep, who worked in the office and was one of the helpers. The encounter ended with Nelly shouting, Just go to your Jews!. He strongly suspected a warehouse employee named Willem van Maaren, who had sparked concerns among the Franks and the people who helped them hide. Van Maaren was suspicious and would set "traps" to . Brigit Katz Explanations for the discovery are mainly based on testimonies, because no documents about the raid on the Secret Annex have been preserved. 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. 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. 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 . Fox on Parkinson's: "Every day it gets tougher". A petty thief and unsavory braggart, Van Maaren was investigated shortly after the war, but nothing was proved. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Records discovered in the Dutch national archives by journalist Pieter van Twisk, co-founder of the research project, seemingly corroborated the claim, suggesting that a member of Amsterdams Jewish Council turned over lists of addresses where Jews were hiding. It was only accessible via a door on the landing, kept hidden by a bookcase. Out of the seven others who hid with her, her father, Otto Frank, was the only one who survived the Holocaust. I think he is the one who gave away the Franks' whereabouts to the caller although I don't think he physically made the call himself.". 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? After discovering some of the family's long-held secrets, Van Wijk now believes there is an unsettling reason behind his mother's relative "anonymity" among the helpers. The burglars had ripped a panel out of the warehouses street door in order to get in. There was another important reason Pankoke crossed Van Dijk off the list of suspects. Out of all the warehouse staff, only Johan Voskuijl was aware of the presence of the people in hiding. After Lee's book was published, Ahlers' son was quoted as saying he was convinced her theory is true. Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter, Despite decades of research, betrayal as a point of departure has delivered nothing conclusive, Ronald Leopold, Executive Director of the Anne Frank House museum, said in statement. Former FBI special agent Vincent Pankoke was looking forward to a relaxing retirement hanging out at the beach when he left the agency. [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. On 17 January 2022 the cold case teampresentedtheir findings. The warehouse workers were not to know that there were people hiding in the Secret Annex. 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. They were successful, and the burglars ran off. After the war, Frank removed content from Annes diary regarding Nellys collaboration. Who betrayed the Franks and why? - Sage-Advices Ed Sheeran plays guitar in court in bid to show he didn't steal Marvin Gaye song As fast as they could, they all fled back to the hiding place. "There's no doubt he did it," Anton Ahlers Jr. told the Volkskrant newspaper. This should be part of her biography.. In 1947, Otto Frank and the helpers filed a complaint against him with the political police on suspicion of betrayal. It probably never will be. 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. My mother had lots of troubles with Nelly during the war and after the war, Van Wijk told The Times of Israel. After all, one of her sisters and her father joined the high-risk effort of hiding, feeding, and sustaining eight Jewish fugitives. This went well until Johan fell ill in 1943 and was replaced by Willem van Maaren. SD big shot Willy Lages knew that the callerwas a well-known informant. The eight people in hiding did not trust him, and often felt suspicious of him. 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. Warehouse worker Lammert Hartog did undeclared work, and director Victor Kugler kept part of the company income out of the books. However, the investigation did not prove his guilt. 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. "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. 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. A detailed picture of the interior of the warehouse, reconstruction (1999). "Number one, that during the time period of the betrayal, she wasn't in town," Pankoke explained. . Advertising Notice 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. But Barnouw said Lee's case sounded credible enough for the institute to reopen its investigation into the betrayal. 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. The people in hiding did not sleep a wink for the rest of the night. Incorrect password. It has been widely believed that Willem van Maaren, a warehouse employee who worked for Otto Frank, outed the Frank family. 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. Bruce Springsteen on "Nebraska," and the emergence of Springsteen the poet He worked in the same building where the Franks were hiding.. Pankoke's team wondered: Did the suspected betrayer know the location of the secret annex? The Subdistrict Court dismissed the . Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles, Who Betrayed Anne Frank? 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. For decades, historians have debated who betrayed Anne Frank and her family. They seem to work from the point of view that he was guilty and [find] a motive to fit that, Somers adds. Summer of 1933. . 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. Almost everyone involved with the case is dead and many historians believe that it is simply impossible to identify the culprit who betrayed the young girl whose poignant diary subsequently sold more than 31 million copies and made her one of the Holocaust's most famous victims. He referred them to the first floor, where the office staff was. These are two of the most frequently asked questions when it comes to Anne Frank. In her diary, Anne reported various attempted burglaries and actual burglaries. And probably wasn't capable of betrayal, because had he betrayed the annex, he knew that he would end up losing his job." The most believable suspect was Arnold van den Bergh, a prominent Jewish businessman in the city who lived a lavish life during the holocaust. Who Betrayed Anne Frank? - History ", Barnouw told The Associated Press he and another colleague will review old files and testimony for new revelations. He found Voskuijl in a desperate state with a mouthful of sleeping pills. She made him keep the episode their secret, he wrote. Throughout the course of the hiding, Bep and Kugler had fallen in love, as Bep later confessed to her sister Diny with red cheeks, wrote Van Wijk. Around the time of the investigation into the SS officer, Voskuijl ceased granting interviews, wrote Van Wijk. Terms of Use 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. On this page we distinguish the facts from the unproven theories and the absolute falsehoods. For more than 20 years, employee Van Maaren was the main suspect. Lee "has no proof, but I can imagine this was the case. The men went down with whatever they could use as weapons and Hermann van Pels shouted Police. 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. In analyzing the person who might have tipped off police to the location, the investigators adapted a standard law enforcement axiom in assessing suspects and looked for "knowledge, motive, opportunity." 2002 The Associated Press. He vehemently denied any involvement and said that Victor Kugler had known about the pieces of wood and other things. "But whenever you actually dig into all the evidence, you find out that he wasn't antisemitic. 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. Fox on Parkinson's and how he finds "optimism is sustainable" 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. "Otto Frank was of no more use to him in that sense, so he betrayed them," Lee said in the television interview. And who among us, if our families were on the line and heading to extermination camps, wouldnt do what we could? 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. A long-held theory proposed that a new employee at her fathers business, Willem van Maaren, tipped off the Nazis. On July 6, the Frank family began their lives in the Secret Annex attached to the office building at Prinsengracht263,where Otto Frank had worked. 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. Downstairs they think it is too risky. If so, please join The Times of Israel Community. "She was out of town working not close to Amsterdam. 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. More recent research by the Anne Frank House highlights and substantiates the possibility that the reasons for the raid may have been completely different. 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. That evening, Peter heard sounds from the warehouse. display: none; 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. 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. We dont have 100 percent certainty. 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. 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. #inline-recirc-item--id-a4ef05fe-8c88-11e2-b06b-024c619f5c3d, #right-rail-recirc-item--id-a4ef05fe-8c88-11e2-b06b-024c619f5c3d { 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. Van Maaren pointed up the stairs, but the police already seemed to know exactly where to go. 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. Please try again or choose an option below. The case against Ahlers fell apart, Pankoke told Wertheim, when it came to knowledge. Evidence of his involvement was never found. Who betrayed Anne Frank? Artificial intelligence could finally solve We are saved, go on saving us!That is all we can say. (Anne Frank, 11 April 1944. The helpers did not trust warehouse worker Willem van Maaren. That same week, the Franks were arrestedwhile Van Dijk was away in the Hague. 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. Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history. In 2022,The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigationwhich details the findings of Pankoke's investigationcited Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish businessman and member of the Jewish Council in Holland, as the culprit. This theory continues on an assumption that in itself is insufficiently proven, that is that betrayal by telephone led to the raid. It is still early days for the investigation, but Pankoke told Wootson Jr. of the Post that the team has already produced some interesting information. (11 April 1944.) Updated: March 29, 2023 | Original: November 1, 2017. 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 has been proven beyond doubt, says Ms Lee, that Ahlers knew where the Franks were hiding and even his own family believe that he is the traitor. The Amsterdam home where she and her family hid is today a museum known as the Anne Frank House. Apparently, the police were called next, because a little while later, they came inside to take a look around. For more than 20 years, employee Van Maaren was the main suspect. Within several years the book had been translated into German, French and English, and was made into a film in 1959. 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. But all ofthe other people who were in hiding, and their collaborators, theyre just as important; theyre just not as famous.. "There's no smoking gun, and the theory has too many loose ends," he said. Willem van Maaren was the traitor. Anne chronicled their lives in the Annex in her diary for the next two years, making her final entry on August 1, 1944. Now, reports Jon Wertheim for CBS News 60 Minutes, a six-year investigation spearheaded by retired FBI agent Vince Pankoke has pinpointed the likely informant: Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish notary who may have revealed the Franks hiding place to the Nazis to protect his own family from deportation. 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. "There was a lot of information that pointed to Tonny Ahlers as being a potential suspect," Pankoke said. Privacy Statement Within five years, she was illegally buying bread and milk for her Jewish friends in hiding and just as important giving them her sought-after company. The subject is still being researched. All Rights Reserved. A 20-person team for theAnne Frank House was led, in part, by two retired FBI officials; former special agent Vince Pankoke, and behavioral scientist Roger Depue. 2022 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. "However, after Otto Frank went into hiding, Tonny Ahlers was out doing other things in different parts of the city. } Millions of people have read The Diary of Anne Frank since it was first published posthumously in 1947. 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. Associate of Anne Frank's Father Suspected of Betrayal She was 15 at the time of her death. "He was a Dutch Nazi, a well-known traitor and an anti-semite and was very anti-Jewish. Ars may earn compensation on sales from links on this site. Retired FBI agent has new theory about who betrayed Anne Frank's family A New Study Suggests Nobody Did. 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).
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