After World War II, Anne's handwritten diary was published as a book.
"Hope for a truce, hope for peace."
"There's always a way out. God never forsakes us. The Jews have endured a lot of hardship throughout the ages, but they've survived through the years, and they've been stronger through the centuries."
"I want to live and live after I die."
...
These sentences are from the diary of Anne Frank, a German Jewish girl. From June 12, 1942, Anne recorded in detail the life of her family in a secret room in the Netherlands to avoid Nazi persecution, expressing her anger at the war. The last entry in the diary is dated August 1, 1944.
One morning three days later, the police stormed an office building beside the Princes Canal in Amsterdam, and put Anne’s family, who had been hiding there, in a concentration camp. Anne's family died in a concentration camp along with 100,000 Dutch Jews, and her father, Otto Frank, was the only survivor (he moved to Switzerland after the war and died in 1980). In 1947, Otto published a compilation of his daughter's escape diaries, which quickly became a global hit, selling more than 25 million copies to date. A question that often pops into the minds of those who read this book is: How did the police find out where the Anne family was hiding? Recently, a multinational joint historical investigation team said that the answer to this question has been found.
Some believe that the Annie family was discovered by accident. However, most researchers believe that Amsterdam is densely built, and the Anne family is hiding in a secret room covered by a bookcase, which is very hidden and is unlikely to be discovered by the police "accidentally". They must have been betrayed. Otto also believes that his family has been betrayed, and has been trying to find the betrayal before his death.
However, the researchers did not find any relevant information. All investigations can only rely on oral dictation, which is easily affected by the personal position and memory errors of the parties. This not only increases the difficulty of the investigation, but also reduces the reliability of the results. Over the decades, no fewer than 30 people have been suspected of betraying, but none of them have been confirmed.
The first suspect was Van Mullen, the warehouse manager at the building. His office is under the back room where Anne's family is hiding, and he has a history of theft. Mullen was investigated twice, in 1947 and 1963. He insists he did not betray the Annie family, and investigators have found no evidence. Most importantly, he didn't sue the engine - if Jews were found, the warehouse would be closed and he would be out of work. Another suspect was Rainer Bradren, who was in charge of the warehouse insecticide. She suspected that someone was hiding in the warehouse and spread the rumor. But her investigation was also inconclusive.
In 1963, the case made a breakthrough. At that time, with the help of the famous "Nazi hunter" Simon Wiesenthal, the Austrian police arrested Karl Silberbauer, who was serving in the Vienna Police Department, and confirmed that he was the police leader who arrested Anne's family. Silberbauer stressed that he was just on a mission and didn't know the details. The man assigned to him that year was SS Lieutenant Julius Detmann. The former general mentioned that he had learned of the Annie family's hiding place through "reliable sources", but he had already committed suicide in a prisoner of war camp. The investigation has again stalled. Ultimately, police dropped the charges against Silber Ball. Otto told the court he believed Silber Ball was just an officer who obeyed orders. But he also stressed: "My only request is to never see this man again (referring to Silber Bower)."
The investigation is still ongoing. It is said that Dutch woman Nellie Foskeier learned of the Anne family's hiding place from her sister who had been helping Jews and reported it to the police. There has also been speculation that the Anne family's hideout has in fact been exposed, and that Otto has been keeping the family safe by bribing Dutch official Tony Achler. When Otto finally ran out of money, Ahlel, who had not received the "protection payment", reported the Anne family to the Nazi authorities. The above speculations lack complete and reliable evidence and cannot be confirmed.
In January 2022, an investigative team led by retired US police detective Vince Pancock claimed to have solved the mystery. The investigation, which began in 2016, involved criminal psychologists, forensics, archivists, historians and more. Pancock, who has nearly 30 years of experience in handling cases, led a team to visit Annie's hiding place, and conducted various investigations from nearby residents and Otto's friends.
After Otto's death, Anne's "legacy" was divided in two: the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, managed the family's hideout, and the Anne Frank Foundation in Basel, Switzerland, owned the "Anne Diary". Some copyrights and related historical materials. Over the years, the two sides have fought endlessly over copyright and royalties, and at one point went to court. When the investigative team asked the Foundation for help, the other party not only refused to provide historical information, but even warned the investigative team not to use Anne's full name in the report. Fortunately, the Anne Frank Museum offers plenty of clues. With its help, the investigation team searched hundreds of thousands of archives and documents in 8 countries, talked with more than 70 relevant personnel, and developed a special database to input the collected maps, letters, photos, documents and other information in real time. Based on this, a map of the distribution of Nazis and informants around the secret room was drawn. In the end, they set their sights on Arnold van Berg, a Dutch Jew.
Left: Anne's family portrait from left to right: father Otto, Anne, sister Edith and mother Margot. Right: Otto in old age holding the book "Annie's Diary".
During World War II, Anne's family hid at 263 Prinsengracht Street in Amsterdam.
Annie's photo.
Borg, a well-known notary public, had an old acquaintance with Otto. After his family moved to the Netherlands in 1933, Otto became an entrepreneur and soon met Borg. Borg helped Annie's family a lot, and Otto trusted him a lot.
On May 10, 1940, Nazi Germany launched a "Blitzkrieg" against the Netherlands. Only five days later, the Dutch government surrendered. This was a bolt from the blue for the Jews living in the country. At that time, many Jews who could not escape in time chose to go into hiding.
When the Nazi army first occupied the Netherlands, they did not immediately send Jews to concentration camps. In order to avoid a large-scale uprising in the local area, they adopted the policy of "boiled frogs in warm water" and announced the establishment of the "Amsterdam Jewish Committee", of which Borg, a leader of the Jewish community, was one of the founding members.
For a long time, Borg has been trying his best to get Nazi officials to "open the door" to the Jews in hiding by reselling artworks and sending bribes for Nazi officials. But by 1943, the Nazis decided to disband the committee, sending all its members to concentration camps. Pancock believed that Borg was also in a concentration camp, but after investigation it was found that Borg and his family were not sent to the concentration camp by the Nazis, but lived in Amsterdam until his death in 1950. This led Pankock to suspect that Borg had made some sort of deal with the Nazi authorities that ultimately left him as the only survivor of the "Jewish Council."
The key evidence for Pancock to believe that Borg betrayed the Anne family was an anonymous letter received by Otto after the war. The letter said Borg was the culprit behind the betrayal of several Jewish families hiding in Amsterdam. He became acquainted with high-ranking Nazi officials for notarizing works of art, and obtained the convenience of calling directly to report. At the time, the private calls of ordinary people were suspended due to mass disconnections.
Combined with previous investigations of Borg's experience during the Nazi occupation, Pancock deduced the entire process of Borg's "betrayal" of Anne's family: In 1943, Borg realized that the "Amsterdam Jewish Committee" was no longer useful to the Nazi authorities. In order to protect himself and his wife, he chose to make a deal with Nazi officials - to provide the Nazi authorities with a list of Jews hiding in the Netherlands and their hiding places (including Anne's family). In return, he and his wife were allowed to cover up their Jewish identities and continue to live in Amsterdam.
There are motives, information, and channels. This is the reason why Pancock, who was a police detective, identified Borg as a betrayal. "Borg was like a chess player, putting layers of protection on himself to prevent his family from being sent to concentration camps," he said.
Many people are skeptical about the conclusions of the Pancock team. "The evidence against Borg is too weak, uses a lot of assumptions and is based on only a small piece of information," said Emile Hirel, director of Amsterdam's Jewish Cultural District. The Anne Frank Museum believes the investigation team has come up with a "fascinating hypothesis." . It is worth mentioning that Brook, the museum's chief researcher, believes that "there are not necessarily betrayers." He said the police were searching for the person who made the fake ration coupons and stumbled upon the Annie's hideout. The police who went to search did not drive a prison car, and one of the police officers was in charge of economic crime investigations.
In fact, Borg's name appeared in the 1963 survey. At that time, Otto said that after the victory of World War II, he received an anonymous letter saying that Borg betrayed his family. Otto also made a copy of the anonymous letter. Pancock finds the son of the detective who was investigating Otto, and sees the transcripts collected by the latter. After forensic identification, this note is genuine. Pankock also found from the Dutch National Archives that it was indeed someone from the "Amsterdam Jewish Committee" who provided the Nazis with a list of Jewish hiding places.
But Otto had already received an anonymous letter, why didn't he propose to investigate Borg? And why is it that in 1963, 13 years after Borg's death, the old words are repeated, and no firm conclusion has been reached? Pankock analyzed that anti-Semitism was still prevalent in Europe after the war, and Otto might not want to admit the fact that there were traitors among the Jews, so as not to provide "bullets" to anti-Semitic public opinion.
Author Rosemary Sullivan wrote the investigation into the book Betrayal of Anne Frank. She said that Borg provided the Nazis with a list of Jewish hiding places, "there is no exact connection to specific people, and there is no guarantee that Jews are still hiding there." He gave this information to save his life, not a typical villain, but a "victim who was cornered". "I think he's a tragic figure."
A well-known Jewish person argued that the culprit was the dehumanizing Nazis. "What the Nazis did during the Holocaust was to dehumanize the Jews. Going back to history and looking for the truth was actually returning the Jews to their humanity."
