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FILE- Journalist takes pictures of images of Anne Frank on the renovated Anne Frank Home Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018. A chilly case group that combed by means of proof for 5 years might have solved one among World Conflict II’s enduring mysteries: Who betrayed Jewish teenage diarist Anne Frank and her household ? Their reply, outlined in a brand new ebook, is that it almost certainly was a Jewish lawyer referred to as Arnold van den Bergh. (AP Picture/Peter Dejong, File)
By MIKE CORDER | The Related Press
AMSTERDAM — A chilly case group that combed by means of proof for 5 years in a bid to unravel one among World Conflict II’s enduring mysteries has reached what it calls the “almost certainly state of affairs” of who betrayed Jewish teenage diarist Anne Frank and her household.
Their reply, outlined in a brand new ebook referred to as “The Betrayal of Anne Frank A Chilly Case Investigation,” by Canadian educational and creator Rosemary Sullivan, is that it may have been a distinguished Jewish notary referred to as Arnold van den Bergh, who disclosed the key annex hiding place of the Frank household to German occupiers to save lots of his circle of relatives from deportation and homicide in Nazi focus camps.
“Now we have investigated over 30 suspects in 20 completely different eventualities, leaving one state of affairs we wish to seek advice from because the almost certainly state of affairs,” stated movie maker Thijs Bayens, who had the concept to place collectively the chilly case group, that was led by retired FBI agent Vincent Pankoke, to forensically study the proof.
Bayens was fast so as to add that, “we don’t have 100% certainty.”
“There isn't any smoking gun as a result of betrayal is circumstantial,” Bayens instructed The Related Press on Monday.
The Franks and 4 different Jews hid within the annex, reached by a secret staircase hidden behind a bookcase, from July 1942 till they have been found in August 1944 and deported to focus camps.
Solely Anne’s father, Otto Frank, survived the battle. Anne and her sister died within the Bergen-Belsen focus camp. Anne was 15.
The diary Anne wrote whereas in hiding was revealed after the battle and have become a logo of hope and resilience that has been translated into dozens of languages and browse by thousands and thousands.
However the id of the one that gave away the placement of their hiding place has all the time remained a thriller, regardless of earlier investigations.
The group’s findings recommend that Otto Frank was one of many first to listen to concerning the attainable involvement of Van den Bergh, a distinguished member of the Jewish neighborhood in Amsterdam.
A quick word, a typed copy of an nameless tip delivered to Otto Frank after the battle, names Van den Bergh, who died in 1950, as the one that knowledgeable German authorities in Amsterdam the place to search out the Frank household, the researchers say.
The word was an missed a part of a decades-old Amsterdam police investigation that was reviewed by the group, which used synthetic intelligence to research and draw hyperlinks between archives all over the world.
The Anne Frank Home museum within the canal-side Amsterdam constructing that features the key annex welcomed the brand new analysis, however stated it additionally leaves questions unanswered. The museum gave the researchers entry to its archives for the chilly case undertaking.
“No, I don’t suppose we are able to say that a thriller has been solved now. I feel it’s an attention-grabbing idea that the group got here up with,” stated museum director Ronald Leopold. “I feel they provide you with numerous attention-grabbing info, however I additionally suppose there are nonetheless many lacking items of the puzzle. And people items should be additional investigated as a way to see how we are able to worth this new idea.”
Bayens stated the hunt for the betrayer was additionally a approach of on the lookout for a proof of how the horror of the Nazi occupation pressured some members of a as soon as close-knit Amsterdam neighborhood to activate each other.
How did facism deliver individuals “to the determined level of betraying one another, which is an terrible, actually terrible state of affairs?” he stated.
“We went on the lookout for a perpetrator and we discovered a sufferer,” Bayens stated.
