The family has let a friend and confidant know that they are concerned about their ‘good name and reputation’, said Paul Theelen in conversation with a reporter from the British newspaper Daily Mail. He confirms his statements against De Telegraaf on Saturday. “We have our doubts about the conclusions of the cold case team to say the least. The main question is with whom and for how long exactly Van den Bergh was in hiding in Laren. Tips on that could lead to answers.”
The six-year-long research and the accompanying book went all over the world this week, but experts and historians have already questioned the conclusions. The prominent Jewish Amsterdammer is said to have handed over a list of hiding addresses to the Germans, including that of the Secret Annex, but there is no hard evidence for this. Van den Bergh was probably also in hiding himself and died in 1950 of throat cancer.
Notary Arnold van den Bergh (center) in 1942 as a member of the Jewish Council.
Ⓒ Image bank NIOD/Joh. The hare
The international ‘cold case team’ led by the Dutch researcher Pieter van Twisk states with 85% certainty that Arnold van den Bergh would have passed on hiding addresses to the Sicherheitsdienst in order to preserve his life. However, the family says there are inconsistencies in that story. According to them, Van den Bergh’s wife and three daughters were already in hiding when Anne’s family was caught by the Nazis in August 1944. The motive for treason is therefore completely unclear, according to Theelen, whose grandfather was the youngest. daughter of Van den Bergh hosted between 1943 and ’45.
“She is upset about the revelations and doesn’t know if they are true or not. She didn’t know about these claims until the investigators told her about it,” said Theelen on behalf of the granddaughter, who was completely overwhelmed by the news. “They claim that her grandfather betrayed Anne Frank to save his own family. But that just doesn’t make sense as a motive. He had three daughters and they were all in hiding at the time.”
note
The researchers also cite an anonymous note that came into the hands of Otto Frank, Anne’s father, after the war, in which the alleged betrayal of the notary was explained. “Your hiding place in Amsterdam was reported at the time to the Jüdische Auswanderung in Amsterdam, Euterpestraat, by A. van den Bergh, who at the time lived near Vondelpark, O. Nassaulaan. At the JA there was a whole list of addresses he passed on,” it said.
Only in 1964 did father Frank come out with the note. Investigators found a copy of the note in a police officer’s family records. Theelen: “Very few people in the Jewish Council survived the war and it is quite possible that someone harbored a grudge against him for the position he held and then wrote a note to Otto Frank. It could also have been a rival.”
Leiden historian Bart van der Boom, who studies the history of the Jewish Council, reacted skeptically when the book was published. “It is very likely that as a former member of the Jewish Council, Van den Bergh had enemies,” he also says. “That he was not in hiding but bought protection through treason is just an assumption of the investigators, for which there is no evidence at all.” According to him, the evidence for the existence of the lists of hiding addresses is also “nothing like.”
Predators
Journalist Hans Knoop agrees. „I am not in favor of taking any book off the market – even Mein Kampf they are allowed to sell from me – but if I were related to Van den Bergh I would consider that.” He calls it “outrageous” that “the name of a respectable gentleman is dragged through the mud like this” and that a publishing house lends itself to the unprecedented commercial way in which the book is presented. For example, under a strict contract, journalists were not allowed to consult experts about the content prior to publication of the book. “They have pounced on this prey like predators.”
The Dutch researcher Peter van Twisk, who led the international ‘cold case team’ that forms the basis of Anne Frank’s Betrayal, let it be known that it does not yet have a substantive defense to all criticisms. “The family did not want any publicity in any way. I will speak to them on Monday, and first want to hear whether this reporting is correct.”
The story of Anne Frank and her family is one of the best known from the Second World War. Thanks to her diary, in which she described how she went into hiding with her loved ones and other families in the Secret Annex on the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam. What has remained a great mystery all these decades is who betrayed the Frank family and ensured that the German occupiers found and deported them. 15-year-old Anne eventually died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, just weeks before British forces were able to liberate the German camp.
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