The news made waves on Monday: According to new investigations, the hiding place of Anne Frank and her family from the National Socialists in Amsterdam was very likely revealed by a notary. He was Jewish himself and is said to have acted in the hope of saving his family by betraying him. An international team led by Dutch filmmaker Thijs Bayens spent five years investigating the case using the latest techniques, with a copy of an anonymous letter being the main evidence.
Criticism of the research and the resulting book “The Betrayal of Anne Frank” was not long in coming. Already on Tuesday historians urged caution. The Dutch author Leon de Winter (67) is now outraged in the “NZZ”.
Author questions accuracy of research
De Winter, son of an orthodox Jew who survived the Holocaust, finds clear words for the findings of the investigation team: “The book itself is a crime,” he writes in the newspaper. It puts the blame for Anne Frank’s “cruel death” on “an innocent Jew”, according to de Winter.
The man spoken of is the Jewish notary Arnold van den Bergh. He was a member of the Judenrat, a group of Jewish dignitaries who believed it was better to cooperate with the Nazis than oppose them.
The author also questions the accuracy of the research, because the letter in question had already been classified as worthless by a Holocaust researcher years earlier. However, the investigative team linked the letter to a statement from a military translator. He claimed that he overheard the Jewish Council handing over a list of around a thousand Jewish hiding places to the German field gendarmerie.
«How did the Judenrat collect these addresses? The council had prevented Jews from going into hiding and was therefore not respected by many, but especially by the Jews who went into hiding,” said de Winter. He cites historian Bart van der Boom, who disagrees with Bayen’s team. The testimonies from this period are “notoriously unreliable”. According to van der Boom, the translator quoted in the book is one of many liars.
Historians criticize “thin evidence”
For de Winter, the book’s statement is untenable: “Before the eyes of the whole world, based on nothing but thin air, a Jew is now being made the traitor of the iconic face of the Holocaust. There is no factual evidence of van den Bergh’s treason.” De Winter is certain: “The team’s work was expensive, and the American publisher that financed it needed someone to blame. It became a Jew». For him, the team around filmmaker Bayens failed.
The evidence is very thin, said the Amsterdam professor for Holocaust and genocide studies, Johannes Houwink ten Cate, on Tuesday in the “NRC Handelsblad”. “With great accusations comes great evidence. And there isn’t.”
Historians from all over the world see no motive in the notary. He himself went into hiding with his family in the summer of 1944 because of the threat of deportation. According to the historians, the notary would only have drawn attention to himself by reporting to the security service. Thijs Bayens himself has not yet commented on the allegations. (chs)