The cold case investigation described in the book Anne Frank’s Betrayal according to the historians, is based on an accumulation of erroneous assumptions and careless use of sources. They call it a ‘shaky house of cards’ and call for the accusation against the notary to be withdrawn.
Two months ago, a team of (inter)national experts published the conclusions of years of investigation into the unresolved treason in August 1944. In that year, a telephone call to the German Sicherheitsdienst in Amsterdam led to the arrest of the people in hiding. Only Otto Frank returned after the war.
In the book, written by Canadian writer Rosemary Sullivan, notary Van den Bergh is identified as the most likely suspect. As a member of the Jewish Council, he could have had lists of people in hiding and would have passed them on to the Germans in order to save his family.
That research, which appeared prominently in numerous national and international media, was quickly criticized. Six historians decided to examine the main arguments of the cold case team. In their 70-page report they leave little to the conclusion that Van den Bergh was the only one with the knowledge, motive and opportunity to commit the betrayal.
This book is about the most iconic story of the Holocaust. The suspect identified by the team thus also becomes the iconic traitor,” said Bart Wallet, professor of Jewish studies (UvA) at the presentation of the report. “For such a claim, the evidence has to be extremely solid. And it isn’t.’
Anonymous note
The starting point of the cold case team’s search was a copy of an anonymous note typed by Otto Frank, which had been thrown in his mailbox shortly after the liberation. In it, Van den Bergh was mentioned as a traitor. ‘Nice detective work’, say the historians, but no strong evidence. ‘Immediately after the war, suspicions abounded.’
The fact that the Jewish Council kept lists of people in hiding is an ‘irresponsible’ and ‘gritty’ accusation, they write. The cold case team relies, among other things, on a witness, but he was biased, as can be read in the report, and moreover only heard his story. The list of names found during a raid by a Jewish Council employee did not come from the Council. It was a card catalog with addresses that the man had contact with as an illegal worker.
The notary did not use high-ranking Nazi contacts to save himself and his family, the historians conclude, because he had none at all. The family survived with the help of the resistance. The three daughters went into hiding from the end of 1943. Van den Bergh and his wife would eventually join the two youngest in Laren.
This is confirmed by the neighbour’s diary entries from March 1945: ‘The family has been in hiding, but is now in possession of false identity cards’, he notes. This also means that the motive for the betrayal is missing, according to the historians. The report alone does not make it clear when the notary ended up in Laren.
The cold case team writes on the website have new diary entries. This would show that at the beginning of 1945 one of Van den Bergh’s daughters suddenly found herself in the kitchen of a befriended family in Amsterdam, close to her parental home. According to the team, this could indicate that the father was also in Amsterdam. Pieter van Twisk, head of research of the cold case team, says in a reaction to the new research that the team still finds the theory about Van den Bergh ‘the most plausible’ of all the investigated explanations. ‘If there are arguments that demonstrably undermine our theory, we will certainly change our opinion. That is not the case for the time being.’
Granddaughter of the notary
Mirjam de Gorter, granddaughter of Arnold van den Berg, made an urgent appeal to Harper Collins, the American publisher, during the presentation of the report on Tuesday evening, to follow the example of the Dutch publisher AmboAnthos and take the book off the market. De Gorter cooperated in the investigation of the cold case team on the assumption that the team was investigating multiple scenarios about the betrayal. She only heard two days before the book’s publication that her grandfather would eventually be portrayed as the traitor when she was called by research leader Vince Pankoke. According to the team, the American publisher had forbidden it to inform her earlier.
“I had no idea what was about to happen. Monday the same news everywhere, the same headlines, all over the world my grandfather’s name was mentioned. It has turned our lives upside down.’
The authors
The research The Jewish Notary and the Charge of Treasonwhich was presented on March 22, was performed by these six historians: Bart Wallet, Petra van den Boomgaard, Bart van der Boom, Raymund Schütz, Laurien Vastenhout and Aaldrik Hermans.