It was only accessible via a door on the landing, kept hidden by a bookcase. The initial police investigation occurred in 1947, when Otto and the Helpers' repeated complaints to the political police accusing Van Maaren finally prompted an investigation. Advertising Notice Fox on Parkinson's, and maintaining optimism, Bruce Springsteen on "Nebraska," and the emergence of Springsteen the poet, Michael J. Those hiding in the annex were wary of Van Maaren, and Anne Frank documented their suspicion in her diary. "He was a Dutch Nazi, a well-known traitor and an anti-semite and was very anti-Jewish. . The authors suspicions were deepened during interviews he conducted for the biography. 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. "She was out of town working not close to Amsterdam. Nelly did it with krauts, the authors father slipped at the table from time to time. His name was Anton Ahlers. The time will come when we will be people again and not just Jews! But despite suspicions, there was no conclusive evidence van Maaren betrayed the family. My aunt Willy [Nellys sister] was furious until she died in 2015, just before the publication, he said. Her writing created a trail to judicial documents from other parts of the Netherlands, resulting in the latest theory. 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. 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. 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. 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. Nelly fell in love with a young Austrian Nazi and had worked for a year on a German air base. Willem Gerardus van Maaren (August 10, 1895- November 28, 1971) was the person most often suggested as the betrayer of Anne Frank. 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. Two Dutch investigations, in 1947-48 and 1963-64, targeted the warehouse manager, Willem van Maaren, but were inconclusive. Jennifer Ouellette The people in hiding slept through the first one, in July 1943. In 1963, the SS officer who conducted the annex raid told investigators a young woman made the betrayal call. 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. This went well until Johan fell ill in 1943 and was replaced by Willem van Maaren. Wertheim spoke with Vince Pankoke, a retired FBI agent. Who betrayed the Frank family and why? Barnouw, the historian, said the blackmail supposition is thin. 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. The first police investigation: Was WILLEM VAN MAAREN the betrayer? "But whenever you actually dig into all the evidence, you find out that he wasn't antisemitic. There are no indications that Willem, or the other warehouse workers, knew that there were people in hiding in the building. Bep Voskuijl was only 18 when she started working for the spice and jam company owned by Otto Frank. Who betrayed Anne Frank? A new book tracks history's most - MSN 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. It is my contribution to peace, understanding, respect, and above all loyalty to every human being.. 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. 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. 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. 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. Jewish Councils were set up in Nazi-controlled cities and pitted members of the Jewish community against one another. First published on January 16, 2022 / 8:09 PM. Lee "has no proof, but I can imagine this was the case. "We can never be just Dutch, or just English, or whatever, we will always be Jews as well. Investigators began taking a fresh look at the case in 2016, hoping to provide new answers. 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. Retired FBI agent has new theory about who betrayed Anne Frank's family Magazines, Digital Both theories are being given equal weight by David Barnouw, the historian charged with establishing the truth. 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. 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. Join the Ars Orbital Transmission mailing list to get weekly updates delivered to your inbox. In that statement we indicated the need for further research. Although he published his mothers most intimate secrets, Van Wijk believes his book would eventually have gained her approval, because she greatly upheld the truth, he said. Per BBC, he wasn't deported and had lost his Jewish identity during the war. 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. For example, it is certain that two representatives from whom the helpers bought illegal coupons were arrested for black marketeering. Anne chronicled their lives in the Annex in her diary for the next two years, making her final entry on August 1, 1944. "I think he actually made the call. / CBS News. This deterioration took place around the period in which a call was made to Gestapo headquarters by a young woman it was later claimed to inform on the Frank familys hiding place. For decades suspicion centred on a man called Willem Van Maaren, who worked in the warehouse attached to the Franks' hiding place. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Nevertheless, researchers do not rule out the potential that Frank and the others were the victims of a betrayal. Unlike other news outlets, we havent put up a paywall. 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. "Otto Frank was of no more use to him in that sense, so he betrayed them," Lee said in the television interview. In 1947, Otto Frank and the helpers filed a complaint against him with the political police on suspicion of betrayal. 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. But then we'll want to be. Anne Frank May Not Have Been Betrayed - Smithsonian Magazine We dont have 100 percent certainty. 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. Downstairs they think it is too risky. The eight people in hiding did not trust him, and often felt suspicious of him. 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. They could, for example, not flush the toilet too often, because the water discharge from the Secret Annex ran along the storeroom. Click the link in that email to complete your registration. Who really turned Anne Frank over to the Nazis? 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. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. 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. 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. We strive for accuracy and fairness. Pankoke's team wondered: Did the suspected betrayer know the location of the secret annex? Pankoke and his team eliminated her as a suspect for a few reasons. 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. Around the time of the investigation into the SS officer, Voskuijl ceased granting interviews, wrote Van Wijk. Previously, Voskuijl and others had placed suspicion on a disgruntled male warehouse employee, Willem van Maaren. 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. At the time of Bep Voskuijls death in 1983, she was the least known of the four Dutch resisters who helped hide Anne Frank. Explanations for the discovery are mainly based on testimonies, because no documents about the raid on the Secret Annex have been preserved. Certainly, Maarten Kuiper received money for the betrayals he made.". In the years since Anne Franks diary was published, investigators and historians have proposed several other potential informants. Experts have discovered, for instance, the identity of a person who betrayed at least one other family to the Nazis. 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.