Trending News Since then, several independent investigations have identified different possible suspects. "The NIWD has never tried to find out who betrayed the Franks but they have contacts which I don't have and know how archives in the Netherlands work. Please enter valid email address to continue. That evening, Peter heard sounds from the warehouse. 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. This should be part of her biography.. 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. Did Willem van Maaren betray Anne Frank? There was one sister, however, who took a different path, Van Wijk was told growing up. Anne Frank is a symbol of the youth and what the people who were in hiding went through, Pankoke said. Nevertheless, Lee's book "is interesting because it takes a more balanced view of Otto Frank," Barnouw said. Within several years the book had been translated into German, French and English, and was made into a film in 1959. 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. Terrified, the people in hiding kept very quiet. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. 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. A long-held theory proposed that a new employee at her father's business, Willem van Maaren, tipped off the Nazis. Sign me up , CNMN Collection The diary Frank kept during her confinement is now considered one of the most important accounts of the Holocaust, but the circumstances of her arrest have always been cloaked in mystery. Anne received the famous diary on June 12, 1942, for her 13th birthday, around the time the Gestapo began deporting Jews in Amsterdam. The note came to authorities' attention during a 1963 investigation into the. Join the Ars Orbital Transmission mailing list to get weekly updates delivered to your inbox. Preview: Michael J. Was Anne Frank's family betrayed? After 72 years, historians have a new Kugler was a married man, and he never shared the secret of the hidden Jews with his wife, wrote Van Wijk. Ahlers himself was jailed for collaboration after the war and bizarrely Otto wrote letters to the authorities pleading for his release. Sign in to stop seeing this, Netanyahu calls for national unity at Independence Day ceremony, Five wounded in terror car-ramming near busy Jerusalem market, Godfather meets Shtisel: New Netflix thriller delves into Haredi diamond dealers, 15,000 attend controversial joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day event. In 1947, Otto Frank and the helpers filed a complaint against him with the political police on suspicion of betrayal. Years later, after Anne Frank became famous for her diary, readers wondered what had gone wrong. Lee "has no proof, but I can imagine this was the case. They will also scrutinise the letters of Anne's father, Otto, for clues and examine police transcripts of interviews dating back to the 1940s. 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. 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. 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. 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. Years later, after Anne Frank became famous for her diary, readers wondered what had gone wrong. You have reached your limit of free articles. Clearly, the museums report concludes, the last word about that fateful summer day in 1944 has not yet been said.. Canadian author details surprising findings of cold-case investigation Rosemary Sullivan's new book documents the roughly five-year Dutch investigation into who. | 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." 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. There are no indications that Willem, or the other warehouse workers, knew that there were people in hiding in the building. In 2002, author Carol Ann Lee argued the informant was Tonny Ahlers, a Dutch Nazi sympathizer who had previously been a business associate of Otto Frank.