In the controversial book The Betrayal of Anne Frank, a team of historians accuses a Jewish notary of betraying Anne Frank. After fierce criticism of the thesis, the Dutch publisher withdraws the book.
Anne Frank in a photo from 1941.
tsf. After five years of research, a 20-strong team of experts believed they had found out who had handed Anne Frank and her family over to the Gestapo in August 1944: the Jewish-Dutch notary Arnold van den Bergh is said to have betrayed the hiding place to the German occupiers, and so much so to save his own family.
This new theory, which the international team of historians, seconded by a former FBI agent, advocated in the non-fiction book “Het verraad van Anne Frank” (“The Betrayal of Anne Frank”), published in January 2022, met with sharp criticism. Most historians dismissed the thesis put forward as unfounded.
Now the Dutch publisher “ambo anthos” has decided to withdraw the book. He asks booksellers to return all copies and stop selling them. In an opinion the publisher apologized.
“We would like to once again express our sincere apologies to those who felt offended by the contents of the book,” the publisher said in a statement on Tuesday.
Last Tuesday, historians of the Second World War in the Netherlands published a counter-report to the book. It states that the conclusions would not have stood up to professional scrutiny. The experts found that there was no serious evidence for the serious allegations in the book.
Annes Frank and seven other family members were discovered by the Gestapo in August 1944 after hiding for almost two years in a back building above a canal-side warehouse in Amsterdam. All were deported and Anne died at the Bergen-Belsen camp at the age of 15.
Anne Frank’s diary was first published in Dutch in 1947 under the title “Het Achterhuis”. The first translation into German was available in 1950.