[Epoch Times, January 20, 2022]Why the hiding place of Anne Frank, a girl who was a victim of the Nazi Holocaust, has become an unsolved World War II mystery. After a six-year unsolved investigation, a team led by a former FBI agent found a Jewish notary suspected Betrayed Annie’s family to save her own children.
An investigation by retired FBI agent Vince Pankoke and a team of about 20 historians, criminologists and data experts has found that the main suspect may be the lesser-known Jewish notary Van den Berg. Arnold van den Bergh, who reveals to the Nazis Anne Frank’s hideout in Amsterdam, Netherlands in order to save her family.
Canadian author Rosemary Sullivan (Rosemary Sullivan) released the latest findings in his new book “The Betrayal of Anne Frank” (provisional translation) released on January 18. The content points out that the evidence comes from modern data processing technology and a lost letter. An anonymous letter to Annie’s father.
The Anne Frank House Museum said it was “shocked” by the evidence presented in the new book but needed to investigate further.
Anne’s family hid in their house by the Amsterdam canal for two years before being arrested by the Nazis on August 4, 1944. The mystery of how the secret hideout came to light has long been rife with arguments.
Anne, 15, and her sister died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in 1945, and her diary, a haunting account of the Holocaust, has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.
Hard evidence?
Agence France-Presse reported that Van den Berg died of throat cancer in 1950, and his name had previously received little attention.
However, Pancock noticed the man during his investigation of a list of four suspects. Van den Berg was a member of the Jewish Council, an administrative body the Nazis forced Jews to set up to arrange deportations from the Netherlands.
The investigation team found that he initially negotiated with the authorities to save his family from deportation, but the authorities rescinded the matter when Annie’s family was raided, leading the investigation team to suspect that he may have betrayed Annie’s family in order to save his own children. hideout.
He also had the opportunity to pass the news, as he worked as a notary public, helping German art dealers sell art looted from Jews to Hermann Goering, deputy to Nazi Germany leader Adolf Hitler.
The most convincing factor, however, was the seriousness with which Anne’s father took the anonymous letter, the team said.
Anne’s father told detectives in 1964 that he received anonymous letters shortly after the war naming Van den Berg as a whistleblower who had betrayed his family, but also others. The research team found a copy of the anonymous letter from Annie’s father in the police file.
“We didn’t find a smoking gun, but we did find a hot weapon with an empty cartridge beside it,” Pankock said, according to the Netherlands Broadcasting Foundation (NOS).
Is there a lot of shady?
The investigation “has yielded important new information”, Ronald Leopold, director of the Anne Frank House Museum, told AFP. But he also said there were still doubts, especially who sent the anonymous letter and why.
Reuters mentioned that the investigation team believes that Annie’s father knew about the letter, but chose not to make it public. It is speculated that the reason is likely to be that he is not sure whether the content of the letter is true, and he does not want the news that the informer is Jewish to promote anti-Semitism. I don’t want Van den Berg’s three daughters to be blamed for what their father might have been involved in.
Thijs Bayens, a Dutch producer involved in the investigation, told US TV that the purpose of the investigation was not to demonize the whistleblower, after all, it was the Nazis who “forced people to do these terrible things.”
“The real question to ask is: What would I have done instead,” he said.
(Central News Agency)
Editor in charge: Zhong Yuan#