why did willem van maaren betray the franks

During his research for the book, Van Wijk learned that Nelly did far more than engage in flirtations with German soldiers. Additionally, believes Van Wijk, Otto Frank either suspected or knew of Nelly Voskuijls role in the betrayal. [My mother] often lived in the past after the war and mulled over the split she found herself in: the loss of her Jewish loved ones from the Annex on the one hand, and her loyalty to her sister [Nelly] who had proven her services to the occupier on the other hand, wrote Van Wijk. Argumentative Essay: Who Betrayed The Franks | ipl.org Among other activities, the Frank sisters took correspondence courses in Voskuijls name, and the administrative assistant put aside filing for the sisters to do at night. As the scarcity increased during the war, so did the number of burglaries. } The warehouse workers were not to know that there were people hiding in the Secret Annex. In 1963, the SS officer who conducted the annex raid told investigators a young woman made the betrayal call. Terms of Use The diary was given to Anne on her 13th birthday, just weeks before she and her family went into hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Two other plausible suspects emerged over the years: Lena van Bladeren-Hartog (died 1963) and Tonny Ahlers (1917 - 2000). All rights reserved. Annes relationship with her sister Margot was standoffish, and Voskuijl helped fill some of the gap between them. She added that the people who were helping to hide the Frank family had been looking into the question of how to get this fellow out of the place from every possible angle. Already a member? Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation, The Diary of Anne Frank: the critical edition (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1989)., A-version 21 April 1944; B-version, 5 August 1943. The video above was produced by Brit McCandless Farmer and Will Croxton. The note came to authorities' attention during a 1963 investigation into the. The second theory, put forward by Austrian writer Melissa Mller, has a cleaning lady in the warehouse, Lena Hartog, as the traitor. Registering also lets you comment on articles and helps us improve your experience. believe the most likely culprit is a local Jewish leader named Arnold van den Bergh. Only one of the people in hiding, Franks father, Otto, survived World War II. A 20-person team for theAnne Frank House was led, in part, by two retired FBI officials; former special agent Vince Pankoke, and behavioral scientist Roger Depue. It is believed that an anonymous tip helped guide the Nazis to the secret annex, yet despite decades of investigations, the identity of the informant has never been proven. Hermann van Pels hit the ground with an axe, which finally drove them away. The case. He was not betraying Otto Frank., Ronald Leopold, director of the Anne Frank House, points out that many missing pieces of the puzzle remain, telling the AP, I dont think we can say that [the] mystery has been solved now.. It is my contribution to peace, understanding, respect, and above all loyalty to every human being.. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! According to Pankoke, for Van den Bergh to have that level of protection, he must have had some leverage with the Nazis. And it really matters to me, and I think it mattered to the group, that that was an anonymous list of addressesthere were no names. Years later, after Anne Frank became famous for her diary, readers wondered what had gone wrong. Since then, several independent investigations have identified different possible suspects. Sign in to stop seeing this, Netanyahu calls for national unity at Independence Day ceremony, Five wounded in terror car-ramming near busy Jerusalem market, Godfather meets Shtisel: New Netflix thriller delves into Haredi diamond dealers, 15,000 attend controversial joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day event. Anne Frank is a symbol of the youth and what the people who were in hiding went through, Pankoke said. | At the time of Bep Voskuijls death in 1983, she was the least known of the four Dutch resisters who helped hide Anne Frank. Though the Nazis dissolved the council in September 1943, sending most of its members to concentration and death camps, van den Bergh and his family managed to escape deportationan exemption indicating that the notary had some kind of leverage, according to Pankoke. Multiple people have been suspected of informing the Nazis of the Franks' hiding place, while one theory suggests it may have simply been bad luck. Meilan Solly But two police investigations - one immediately after the. Bruce Springsteen on "Nebraska," and the emergence of Springsteen the poet The Subdistrict Court dismissed the . For instance, the Anne Frank House in 2016 reinvestigated the raid, and in 2017 a former FBI officer announced that he would be looking for the possible traitor of the people in hiding with the help of an international cold case team and new technology. In theory, as Cleve R. Wootson Jr. notes in the Washington Post, the betrayer of the Frank family shouldnt be hard to find; Nazis kept detailed records of all arrests and informants. See: Barnouw, David & Stroom, Gerrold van der, Who betrayed Anne Frank? Pankoke's team wondered: Did the suspected betrayer know the location of the secret annex? This theory continues on an assumption that in itself is insufficiently proven, that is that betrayal by telephone led to the raid. But isn't it even riskier to leave things as they are?. Frank wist wie hem weghaalde, De Telegraaf, 22 November 1963. Van Maaren was later the subject of multiple investigations related to the betrayalincluding one by famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthalbut he always maintained his innocence, and none of the cases ever produced any evidence against him. The helpers worked in the office above the warehouse. And probably wasn't capable of betrayal, because had he betrayed the annex, he knew that he would end up losing his job." The most believable suspect was Arnold van den Bergh, a prominent Jewish businessman in the city who lived a lavish life during the holocaust. Anne Frank HouseWestermarkt 201016 DK Amsterdam, Ronald Leopold, Executive Director of the Anne Frank House. Anne and her family hid for 25 months in a canal-side warehouse in central Amsterdam, where the teen-ager wrote her thoughts, yearnings and descriptions of life in the cramped annex into notebooks. All Rights Reserved. Bep Voskuijl was only 18 when she started working for the spice and jam company owned by Otto Frank. It's possible, Brock suggested, that there was no betrayal, and the SS raid was really part of ongoing attempts to track down purveyors of illegal goods. For decades, historians have debated who betrayed Anne Frank and her family. If so, please join The Times of Israel Community. Ahlers himself was jailed for collaboration after the war and bizarrely Otto wrote letters to the authorities pleading for his release. Read our affiliate link policy. Terrified, the people in hiding kept very quiet. 2022 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community. Pankoke and his team also spent hours looking for clues in the concealed rooms behind an Amsterdam warehouse, where the Frank family and four other Jews lived hidden away for more than two years. Tellingly, the books title in Dutch was, Silent No More., The biography is my mission, said Van Wijk, who dedicated the book to Dutch resisters against Nazism. His aunts past as a Nazi collaborator, as well as her whereabouts during a key part of the hiding period, had been covered up by the family. My aunt Willy [Nellys sister] was furious until she died in 2015, just before the publication, he said. Anne often wrote about good-natured Bep in her diary, including happenings in the large Voskuijl family of eight siblings. After the war, Otto Frank, the only member of his family who survived the Holocaust, made statements indicating he knew who his betrayer was. Another book posited that the suspect might be a Jewish woman. First published in English in 1952 as "The Diary of a Young Girl" and later as a stage play and film, her story made her a symbol both of the Holocaust and of Dutch bravery. He stole goods and was generally considered dishonest. Did they do it for money? Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Digital Investigators began taking a fresh look at the case in 2016, hoping to provide new answers. Throughout the course of the hiding, Bep and Kugler had fallen in love, as Bep later confessed to her sister Diny with red cheeks, wrote Van Wijk. The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, the researchers who published the authoritative version the diary and the caretaker of the Frank papers, said Ahlers had not been a suspect until Lee started probing his background for her book, "The Hidden Life of Otto Frank," published in March. This theory holds that Nellywho returned to Amsterdam in 1943 when her romance souredmay have been the anonymous female caller who (allegedly) tipped off the SS about the Secret Annex, per the testimony of SS officer Karl Josef Silberbauer, who made the arrests. As for opportunity, the team examined whether the suspect was in Amsterdam at the time of the August 1944 raid or might have any opportunity to betray the hiding place. Then, the team considered the motive. "I think that people that are looking at this feel, 'Ah, maybe we can learn something if this case is solved,'" Pankoke said. It takes just a few seconds. Who Betrayed Anne Frank? Part One : r/UnresolvedMysteries - Reddit Out of all the warehouse staff, only Johan Voskuijl was aware of the presence of the people in hiding. My mother had lots of troubles with Nelly during the war and after the war, Van Wijk told The Times of Israel. Nevertheless, Lee's book "is interesting because it takes a more balanced view of Otto Frank," Barnouw said. We are saved, go on saving us!That is all we can say. (Anne Frank, 11 April 1944. The case against Ahlers fell apart, Pankoke told Wertheim, when it came to knowledge. "There was a lot of information that pointed to Tonny Ahlers as being a potential suspect," Pankoke said. I think he is the one who gave away the Franks' whereabouts to the caller although I don't think he physically made the call himself.". Gies and Voskuijl were questioned but not detained. There were two separate official investigations into who may have betrayed the family: one in 1947-1948 and the second (conducted by the Dutch police) in 1963-1964. Immediately after the war, Willem van Maaren was the only suspect in the investigation into the raid of the Secret Annex by the Sicherheitsdienst. The Germans were paying a bounty of 40 guilders per head, which was "a large amount in those days," she said. He and his team spent five years poring over every bit of pertinent material, setting up an extensive online database, and developing an AI program to help them sift through it all and find new connections. After spending two years eluding Nazi capture while in hiding in Amsterdam, the Frank family was discovered on. Click the link in that email to complete registration so you can comment. It has been widely believed that Willem van Maaren, a warehouse employee who worked for Otto Frank, outed the Frank family. (public domain), Author Joop van Wijk with the biography of his mother, Bep Voskuijl (courtesy), Bep Voskuijl, lower right, with Otto Frank (middle) and the other Dutch helpers in October, 1945 (public domain), Nelly Voskuijl during World War II (courtesy: Joop van Wijk), View of the secret annex with its blacked out windows at the renovated Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Nov. 21, 2018 (AP Photo/Peter Dejong), The Secret Annex in which Anne Frank wrote her diary, Amsterdam, January 2017 (Matt Lebovic/The Times of Israel), Otto Frank and Bep Voskuijl in 1978 (courtesy: Joop van Wijk), Anne Franks hiding place bedroom during the 1950s (left) and her restored bedroom at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam today (Matt Lebovic/The Times of Israel), Exterior of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, November 2014 (Matt Lebovic/The Times of Israel).

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why did willem van maaren betray the franks