Investigators may have solved the mystery of how the Nazis found the famous diarist’s hiding place. They believe that there was a Jewish informant.
After hiding from the Nazis in the attic of a warehouse in Amsterdam for two years, Anne Frank and seven other Jews were discovered in 1944. Anne was sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she died, aged 15.
The identity of the person who gave up Frank’s hiding place has remained a mystery. Now an investigation by a team of historians, data specialists and criminologists suggests that Jewish notary and member of Amsterdam’s Jewish Council, Arnold van den Bergh, was responsible.
The Jewish Council enforced Nazi policy in the city’s Jewish areas, but was disbanded in 1943 when its members were sent to concentration camps.
Van den Bergh was not sent to a concentration camp, but lived a normal life until his death in 1950.
Investigators believe that Van den Bergh, in exchange for his family’s lives, provided the Nazis with a list of Jews in hiding.
The primary piece of evidence is an unsigned letter to Otto Frank, discovered in a post-war dossier, naming Van den Bergh as the Nazi informant.
Otto was the only member of the Frank family to survive the war. Investigators confirmed that he knew about the letter but chose never to release it to the public.
Executive director of the Anne Frank House museum, Ronald Leopold, said that he was ‘impressed’ with the investigative work, that it had ‘generated important new information and a fascinating hypothesis that merits further research’.
However, Bart van der Boom from Leiden University called the announcement ‘Defamatory nonsense’.
Emeritus professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Amsterdam University, Johannes Houwink ten Cate told investigators that ‘With big accusations you also need big evidence’.