A group of Dutch historians has published an in-depth criticism of the work and conclusion of a cold case team that said it had pieced together the \u201cmost likely scenario\u201d of who betrayed Jewish teenage diarist Anne Frank and her family
On Location: March 23, 2022
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The publisher of a new and controversial work about Anne Frank is pulling the book after a group of Dutch historians released an in-depth criticism of its \u201cmost likely scenario\u201d of who betrayed the Jewish teenage diarist and her family in German-occupied Amsterdam during World War II.
Meanwhile, the U.S. publisher of \u201cThe Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation\u201d announced Wednesday that it will continue to sell the book.
The cold case team\u2019s research, published early this year in a book by Canadian academic and author Rosemary Sullivan, immediately drew criticism in the Netherlands.
In a 69-page written \u201crefutation,\u201d six historians and academics describe the cold case team\u2019s findings as \u201ca shaky house of cards.\u201d The book’s Dutch publisher, Ambo Anthos, repeated an earlier apology and announced Tuesday night it was withdrawing \u201cThe Betrayal of Anne Frank.\u201d
The book alleged that the person who revealed the location of the Frank family’s secret annex hiding place was likely a prominent Jewish notary, Arnold van den Bergh, who disclosed the location in an Amsterdam canal-side building to the German occupiers to save his own family from deportation and death in Nazi concentration camps.
The Dutch historians reviewed the team’s work and concluded the \u201caccusation does not hold water.\u201d
The historians said the book \u201cdisplays a distinct pattern in which assumptions are made by the CCT (Cold Case Team), held to be true a moment later, and then used as a building block for the next step in the train of logic. This makes the entire book a shaky house of cards, because if any single step turns out to be wrong, the cards above also collapse.\u201d
In response, the cold case team’s leader, Pieter van Twisk, told Dutch broadcaster NOS the historians’ work was \u201cvery detailed and extremely solid\u201d and said it \u201cgives us a number of things to think about, but for the time being I do not see that Van den Bergh can be definitively removed as the main suspect.\u201d
Since the book’s publication in January, the team has published detailed reactions to criticism of its work on its website.
Dutch filmmaker Thijs Bayens, who had the idea to put together the cold case team, conceded in January that the team did not have 100% certainty about Van den Bergh.
\u201cThere is no smoking gun because betrayal is circumstantial,\u201d Bayens told The Associated Press at the time.
Not all publishers were dropping the book. In the U.S., HarperCollins Publishers issued a statement saying it stands by \u201cThe Betrayal of Anne Frank,\u201d adding that \u201cWhile we recognize there has been some criticism to the findings, the investigation was done with respect and the utmost care for an extremely sensitive topic.\u201d
The Frank family and four other Jews hid in the annex, which was reached by a secret staircase hidden behind a bookcase, from July 1942 until they were discovered in August 1944 and deported to concentration camps.
Anne and her sister died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Anne was 15. Only Anne\u2019s father, Otto Frank, survived the Holocaust. He published her diary after WWII and it quickly became an enduring symbol of loss and resilience, read by millions around the world.
Ronald Leopold, the director of the Anne Frank House museum based in the building where the Frank family hid, said in January that there remained “many missing pieces of the puzzle. And those pieces need to be further investigated in order to see how we can value this new theory.\u201d
On Wednesday, Leopold said question marks the museum had in January about the cold case team\u2019s conclusions \u201care supported by the counter-examination of leading historians. You may not consign someone to history as Anne Frank\u2019s betrayer if you do not have conclusive proof. We hope that this counter-investigation clears Van den Bergh\u2019s name from blame, also for his relatives, including granddaughter Mirjam de Gorter.\u201d
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AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this story from New York.
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