While admitting that the case is circumstantial and some reasonable doubt remains, Pankoke et al. 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. Lee said Ahlers probably decided to tip off the authorities after his own company slid into bankruptcy and he no longer needed to do business with Frank's company. Willy Lages, head of the Amsterdam Sicherheitsdienst. It was clear that Tonny Ahlers had no knowledge that Otto Frank and the others were hiding in the annex.". In addition to Johan Voskuijls involvement, another of the Voskuijl sisters sewed clothes for the Jews in hiding, making the effort a family affair. 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. Photo collection: Anne Frank Stichting, Amsterdam / photographer: Allard Bovenberg, All 8 of us were just pleased that we had slept so well that night and not heard a thing., We had all stopped breathing audibly by then., Reconstruction: the arrest of the people in hiding. But soon, it proved she was unable to resolve things that way.. Apparently, the police were called next, because a little while later, they came inside to take a look around. Still, experts remain focused on the fate of the teenage diarist whose life was cut tragically short. Pankoke and his team also spent hours looking for clues in the concealed rooms behind an Amsterdam warehouse, where the Frank family and four other Jews lived hidden away for more than two years. Suddenly, a passer-by used a flashlight to take a look inside. "There's no smoking gun, and the theory has too many loose ends," he said. The people in hiding slept through the first one, in July 1943. They didn't flee quite far enough: the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands began in May 1940 and eventually forced the Franks (and many other Jews) into hiding. The helpers and people in hiding did not trust him. The research is based on Franks diary entries from March 1944entries that researchers say have not been used as a source until now. It made sense that two people who were constantly in each others vicinity and shared the role of helper of Jews, grew closer, he wrote. The note came to authorities attention during a 1963 investigation into the betrayal but received little notice, with police instead focusing their efforts on suspects such as van Maaren. Van Maaren fought the accusations and rejected a settlement. Ars may earn compensation on sales from links on this site. When the people in hiding put it back, it was brutally kicked in again. God truly protected us ,Anne wrote in her diary, much relieved. But Barnouw said Lee's case sounded credible enough for the institute to reopen its investigation into the betrayal. Who betrayed the Frank family and why? Ms Lee also claims that Ahlers was blackmailing Otto, first in 1941 by threatening to release a letter which would have led to his deportation, and astonishingly after the war too and even as recently as 1980 when Otto died. 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. Anne chronicled their lives in the Annex in her diary for the next two years, making her final entry on August 1, 1944. In a 2018 book,The Backyard of the Secret Annex,Gerard Kremer, the son of a member of the Dutch resistance of the same name, argues that a Jewish woman,Ans van Dijk, was responsible for the Franks' capture. (public domain), Author Joop van Wijk with the biography of his mother, Bep Voskuijl (courtesy), Bep Voskuijl, lower right, with Otto Frank (middle) and the other Dutch helpers in October, 1945 (public domain), Nelly Voskuijl during World War II (courtesy: Joop van Wijk), View of the secret annex with its blacked out windows at the renovated Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Nov. 21, 2018 (AP Photo/Peter Dejong), The Secret Annex in which Anne Frank wrote her diary, Amsterdam, January 2017 (Matt Lebovic/The Times of Israel), Otto Frank and Bep Voskuijl in 1978 (courtesy: Joop van Wijk), Anne Franks hiding place bedroom during the 1950s (left) and her restored bedroom at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam today (Matt Lebovic/The Times of Israel), Exterior of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, November 2014 (Matt Lebovic/The Times of Israel). Specifically, Anne referred to the troubles brought upon the Voskuijl family by Nelly, and that the young woman was often away from home.. He strongly suspected a warehouse employee named Willem van Maaren, who had sparked concerns among the Franks and the people who helped them hide. Later, when father Johan Voskuijl and sister Bep were involved in hiding Jews on the Prinsengracht, Nelly was working for the Nazis across town. Although Joop van Wijks book follows the course of his mothers life, the suspense swirls around his late aunt Nelly, Voskuijls sister. In order to protect his own family, van den Bergh may have handed over lists of addresses where fellow Jews were hiding to the Nazis. And if what we could do would be to offer anonymous addresses, I dont know that I know many people who could resist it.. Among Voskuijls other secrets that her son came to know, the clandestine affection shared by his mother and Victor Kugler, one of the other Secret Annex helpers, fills a page of the book. "He was a Dutch Nazi, a well-known traitor and an anti-semite and was very anti-Jewish. Please try again or choose an option below. 2002 The Associated Press. The Germans were paying a bounty of 40 guilders per head, which was "a large amount in those days," she said. Among those captured was Anne Frank, a 15-year-old schoolgirl who had spent over two years living in the cramped safehouse with her parents and older sister. The authors suspicions were deepened during interviews he conducted for the biography. That same week, the Franks were arrestedwhile Van Dijk was away in the Hague. "However, after Otto Frank went into hiding, Tonny Ahlers was out doing other things in different parts of the city. Three days after Frank wrote these wordsthe final entry in her beloved diarySS officers raided her Amsterdam hiding place and arrested its eight inhabitants. Anne wrote about it in her diary and attributed negative qualifications to him. He stole goods and was generally considered dishonest. On July 6, the Frank family began their lives in the Secret Annex attached to the office building at Prinsengracht263,where Otto Frank had worked. "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. But the evidence against Van Maaren was again inconclusive, and he died in 1971 professing his innocence. Ahlers had discovered, says Lee, that Otto's herb and food preservative business had supplied the Wehrmacht throughout the war and that, she suggests, would have been enough to see Otto branded a collaborator. Pankoke and his colleagues, including an investigative psychologist, a war crimes investigator, historians, criminologists and archivists, approached the historical mystery like a criminal cold case. "There's no doubt he did it," Anton Ahlers Jr. told the Volkskrant newspaper. Potential informants ruled out by the group ranged from Willem van Maaren, an oft-cited suspect who worked in the warehouse where the Franks were hiding, to Nelly Voskuijl, a Nazi sympathizer and the sister of Secret Annex helper Bep Vokuijl, to Ans van Dijk, a Jewish collaborator whose actions led to the arrest of some 145 people. All Rights Reserved. For two years, Anne Frank's family hid in secret rooms in Amsterdam, knowing that a curtain left open by mistake, a wayward noise or a nervous conspirator's phone call to the Nazis could land. They also believe their work in solving this decades-old cold case resonates today. Co-authored by Belgian journalist Jeroen De Bruyn, Van Wijks book is called, Anne Frank: The Untold Story, with the subtitle, The hidden truth about Elli Vossen, the youngest helper of the Secret Annex. (As 15-year old Anne refined her diary with an eye toward eventual publication, Elli Vossen was the pseudonym she gave to Bep.). Cookie Policy "I think he actually made the call. Your Privacy Rights Canadian author details surprising findings of cold-case investigation Rosemary Sullivan's new book documents the roughly five-year Dutch investigation into who. According to the author, he has mostly been met by cold shoulders. | READ MORE. Downstairs they think it is too risky. Warehouse worker Lammert Hartog did undeclared work, and director Victor Kugler kept part of the company income out of the books. Suddenly, a passer-by used a flashlight to take a look inside. Historians made no further headway. It has been translated into 70 languages and inspired a theatrical play and subsequent Oscar-winning 1959 film, featuring Millie Perkins in the title role. Although the team's evidence points to Van den Bergh as the prime suspect, they concede this is a circumstantial case. }. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. Former FBI special agent Vincent Pankoke was looking forward to a relaxing retirement hanging out at the beach when he left the agency. Fifteen-year-old Anne, her sister Margot and her mother Edith died in Nazi concentration camps. Her political leanings had estranged her so much from her family that she left their house. In the authors opinion, his mother had an internal conflict that led her to opt for as little attention as possible, practically complete radio silence, from the beginning of the Sixties, he wrote. They had come very close to being discovered! The burglars managed to take two cash boxes containing forty guilders, blank giro and bank cheques, and coupons for 150 kilograms of sugar. He only stuck to the logic of assumptions of which he did not know the validity, nor did he need to know the validity in order to give a reasoned answer. This deterioration took place around the period in which a call was made to Gestapo headquarters by a young woman it was later claimed to inform on the Frank familys hiding place. After tracking down Hulsman for the book, Van Wijk learned of a heated conversation between Nelly and other members of the Voskuijl family during the hiding period. After discovering some of the familys long-held secrets, Van Wijk now believes there is an unsettling reason behind his mothers relative anonymity among the helpers. Michael J. Did they do it for money? Left unsigned, the message named van den Bergh as the person who'd reported the Franks' hiding place to the Nazis. More than 100,000 Dutch Jews - 70 percent of the community - were deported to concentration camps in Germany. If Frank had known that Van Dijk had also betrayed his family, Pankoke reasoned, he would have had no incentive to keep the information quiet. A petty thief and unsavory braggart, Van Maaren was investigated shortly after the war, but nothing was proved. My aunt Willy [Nellys sister] was furious until she died in 2015, just before the publication, he said. Erik Somers, a historian at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, praised the depth of the investigation but criticized its conclusion. He was the warehouse manager as well as the father of Bep, who worked in the office and was one of the helpers. So now we have a request. The German-born Frank, who moved to Holland in 1933, ran a spice-trading company that sold goods to the Wehrmacht, the German army. The diary was given to Anne on her 13th birthday, just weeks before she and her family went into hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. It was only accessible via a door on the landing, kept hidden by a bookcase. All Rights Reserved. He long suspected his family was turned in by Willem van Maaren, a recently hired employee who was not in on the secret behind the bookcase. All rights reserved. Otto, for his part, never publicly named van den Bergh, who died in 1950, as the informant. Van Maaren fought the accusations and rejected a settlement. There are no indications that Willem, or the other warehouse workers, knew that there were people in hiding in the building. There was one sister, however, who took a different path, Van Wijk was told growing up. He referred them to the first floor, where the office staff was. Recently translated into English, Van Wijks family account adds what he calls a remarkable name to the list of people suspected of betraying the Secret Annex nearly 75 years ago: his mothers sister. 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. Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel, 2023 The Times of Israel , All Rights Reserved, Anne Frank, aged 12, at her school desk in Amsterdam, 1941. WIRED Media Group They seem to work from the point of view that he was guilty and [find] a motive to fit that, Somers adds. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday. Around the time of the investigation into the SS officer, Voskuijl ceased granting interviews, wrote Van Wijk. Hermann van Pels hit the ground with an axe, which finally drove them away. That, Ms Lee suggests, is more likely to have been a man called Maarten Kuiper, who made a living from the betrayal of Jews and who moved into Ahlers' flat with him the day before the raid. Privacy Statement 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. | READ MORE. } However, Pankoke told 60 Minutes he trusts the evidence shows those hiding in the annex were betrayed and that the Nazi discovery and arrest wasn't merely a coincidence. He found Voskuijl in a desperate state with a mouthful of sleeping pills. She made him keep the episode their secret, he wrote. He and his team spent five years poring over every bit of pertinent material, setting up an extensive online database, and developing an AI program to help them sift through it all and find new connections. That evening, Peter heard sounds from the warehouse. Beginning in 2016, Pankoke led a team of expert investigators equipped with modern crime-solving techniques to try to crack the case. The subject is still being researched. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Digital But two police investigations - one immediately after the. For more than 20 years, employee Van Maaren was the main suspect. ", Photo of Ans van Dijk courtesy of Ben van Meerendonk/IISH. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Preview: Michael J. It claims that Ahlers - then a 26-year- old petty thief - had fallen on hard times by 1944 and desperately needed the bounty paid to Dutch civilians who exposed Jews in their midst. During his research for the book, Van Wijk learned that Nelly did far more than engage in flirtations with German soldiers. Since then, several independent investigations have identified different possible suspects. In her diary, Anne reported various attempted burglaries and actual burglaries. 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." These include Lena Hartog, the wife of one of the warehouse employees; and Nelly Voskuijl, the sister of one of the Franks helpers. A detailed picture of the interior of the warehouse, reconstruction (1999). This theory holds that Nellywho returned to Amsterdam in 1943 when her romance souredmay have been the anonymous female caller who (allegedly) tipped off the SS about the Secret Annex, per the testimony of SS officer Karl Josef Silberbauer, who made the arrests. The people in hiding in the Secret Annex were terrified when someone broke into the business premises. Explanations for the discovery are mainly based on testimonies, because no documents about the raid on the Secret Annex have been preserved. ", Patricia Bosboom, of the Anne Frank Foundation which maintains the house where Anne hid, said Lee's theory was plausible, "but it's still only a theory. Millions of people have read The Diary of Anne Frank since it was first published posthumously in 1947. Shortly after World War II ended, Otto Frank suggested that the culprit was Willem van Maaren, a warehouse employee who was not in on the secret. SD big shot Willy Lages knew that the callerwas a well-known informant. Kremer's father was an acquaintance ofVan Dijk in Amsterdam and Kremer writes that in early August 1944, his father overheardVan Dijkspeaking about Prinsengracht, where the Franks were hiding, in Nazi offices. Brigit Katz Then, in 2016, a team of investigators, led by a veteran FBI agent, decided to bring modern. But two police investigations - one immediately after the war and another in the 1960s - turned up nothing and Van Maaren died in 1971 professing his innocence. The men went down with whatever they could use as weapons and Hermann van Pels shouted Police. They asked SD chief Willy Lages whether it was common for his former service to jump to action upon receiving a telephone tip-off about people in hiding.
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