The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation, by Rosemary Sullivan (2022)
In August 1944, a German SS officer received a telephone tip of Jews hiding in a building located at Prinsengracht 263. The exact details of the raid on the address have been lost to history, but the raid resulted in the capture of the Frank family and 4 other individuals who had been in hiding in the Annex for the past 2 years. Anne, her sister Margot, and her mother did not survive the concentration camp where they had been deported. Anne’s father, Otto, did survive. Anne’s diary also survived. With the publication of her diary, Anne became a symbol of the millions who died at the hands of the Nazis.
This book attempts to answer the question of who betrayed the secret hiding place? In 2016, a team of forensic scientists, a former FBI agent, historians, and others, was put together to comb through hundreds of documents, interviews, and other evidence to find the answer … or at least an answer. This book is the story of the evidence compiled by the Cold Case Team.
The author notes that the Netherlands was responsible deporting more Jews to concentration camps than other European countries. Near the beginning of German Occupation, a Jewish Council, made up of Jews, was formed, ostensibly to help the Jews of the Netherlands and fend off anti-Jewish actions. Soon, however, the Council was ordered to help organize the selection of Jewish deportees to concentration camps. The Cold Case team extensively examined the pasts of the members of the Council for clues to see if one could have betrayed the Franks.
Members of the Council would have had access to lists of addresses where Jews of the Netherlands might be. Thus, Council members could have retained such lists as insurance to be used to save their lives, leading to the conclusion that another Jew betrayed the Franks. The Cold Case Team seems to ignore the fact that whether or not a Council member was the betrayer of the Franks, the Council members certainly betrayed hundreds of other fellow Jews.
The book examined a number of possible betrayers and the Cold Case Team eliminated them one-by-one, until singling one out. The suspect was a member of the Jewish Council, thus would have access to addresses of hiding places. The Cold Case Team believed that Otto Frank knew his betrayer, but for reasons known only to himself, kept his identity to himself.
The Team concluded that a man named Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish notary, was the most likely betrayer. He is believed to have had a list of at least 500 names, which he may have been holding as insurance to be used to save his life and that of his family.
I have mixed feelings about this book. Clearly, a lot of time and money was spent searching for the betrayer of the Frank family. There are many, many characters in this book, which makes it a bit confusing, especially since many names and titles are non-English. But does find out out who actually betrayed one family, when so many families were betrayed really matter? The take-away is that when faced with a life-or-death situation, one might easily betray another to save one’s self.
Read: February 21, 2022
3 Stars
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