NOS News - Domestic - today, 15:20 - Updated today, 16:33
Experts critical of new Anne Frank theory: "Slanderous nonsense"
Lambert Teuwissen and Stan Rombouts - editors online and domestic
Experts react critically to a new theory on the betrayal of Anne Frank. There is admiration for the large amount of information that the team was able to uncover using modern methods, but the conclusion that a Jewish notary betrayed the Secret Annex is based too much on assumptions, according to experts.
Ronald Leopold, director of the Anne Frank House, is impressed by the amount of work done by the team. All the known theories, as well as a few new ones, were explored. "An admirable amount of work."
He calls the conclusion that Jewish notary Arnold van den Bergh was behind the betrayal "a new perspective," but he also has reservations. "I think you have to conclude that important pieces of the puzzle are still missing."
The researchers argue that as a prominent member of the Jewish Council, Van den Bergh had access to lists of addresses in hiding. When he himself was in danger of being deported, he passed them on to the Nazis in order to save his family, the team argues.
"Slanderous nonsense,'' Bart van der Boom reacts vehemently. The Leiden University lecturer is working on a book about the Jewish Council that will be published in April, entitled
Politics of the Lesser Evil. "There is no serious corroboration for this story."
The team deduces the existence of the lists from post-war testimony by a German interpreter. Gibberish, Van der Boom characterizes that reasoning. "You're out of your mind if you think that the members of the Jewish Council, respected people, would betray 500 to 1,000 Jewish people who went into hiding."
" With big accusations, you also need big evidence. "
Johannes Houwink ten Cate, emeritus professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Emeritus Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Johannes Houwink ten Cate of the University of Amsterdam concurs. "There has been very harsh judgment about the Jewish Council after the war, not least in Jewish circles. If there had been any evidence that there had been lists of Jews in hiding, that would really have been brought up after the war."
Moreover, Houwink ten Cate continues, even if those lists existed, it would not have been proven that the Secret Annex was on them or that Van den Bergh had knowledge of them. "With big accusations, you also need big evidence."
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Van den Bergh's granddaughter, who spoke to the researchers about her family history, was told their findings last weekend. She does not want to respond, she tells NOS. "I want to limit it to my cooperation with the preliminary investigation into this war history," she says in a response.
Chief Investigator Pieter van Twist says that the woman was shocked when she heard about the accusations against her grandfather earlier in the investigation. She had never heard about it in the family. "She thought it was terrible. But on the other hand, if it allowed him to secure his own family, then of course it would be possible."
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The investigators admit that they have not been able to find
a smoking gun. Former NIOD [Netherlands Institute for War Documentation] investigator David Barnouw thinks that is also an illusion after all these years, as he himself concluded in 2003 in an investigation of all suspects brought up to that point (including a short piece on Van den Bergh).
"I was very curious to see what came out of it," says Barnouw, who was asked to participate but declined. "The problem is always that people start from assumptions. I could make three more stories like that. It's a theory that fits in with the list of other suspects, but it's still speculation."
The reasoning that Van den Bergh, as a notary in the Goudstikker affair, had good relations with the Nazi leadership and might have been able to negotiate his fate, does not convince Barnouw either. "All the Jews who had any jobs at all were involved in collaboration. It was also difficult for him to refuse; that would have caused him more trouble."
He also considers it unlikely that passing on addresses Van den Bergh would have accomplished anything. "I don't believe the Germans would have been impressed if someone came to them and said 'Oh, I have some addresses here for you, would you please let me off the hook'."
Tunnel vision
Van der Boom also notes a lack of evidence that, if the betrayal had taken place at all, it would have benefited Van den Bergh. The research team argues that the notary was able to walk around freely in 1944 because there are no details known about a hiding. "That seems to me to be tunnel vision. They say: he wasn't in hiding, so he had to have bought his safety in some other way. But they just don't know where he was."
"It wasn't as if absconders just called up to say 'I'm now located there and there,'" Houwink ten Cate adds. Moreover, he continues, why would the raid on the Secret Annex only take place in August 1944, if Van den Bergh had already gotten into trouble at the beginning of that year? "There are a lot of loose ends in the story."
What remains is the accusatory piece of correspondence about Van den Bergh that was delivered to Otto Frank shortly after the war. Because Anne Frank was not yet world-famous at the time, the anonymous writer must have been telling the truth, the cold case team believes.
But Van der Boom sees this differently as well. "Perhaps someone wanted to blacken Van den Bergh. He had enemies and after the war there were thousands of stories about who had blood on their hands and butter on their heads. In that context, there are also an incredible number of nonsense stories being told."
That Van den Bergh, who died in 1950, has previously been described as having integrity weighs more heavily for Houwink ten Cate. "It is true that this is the only written piece of evidence in which a name is mentioned. But we also know that Van den Bergh was reinstated honorably as a notary publicly after the war without any problem. That only would have happened if he had a reputation for integrity as a notary."
"It's a pretty definitive interpretation of basically one piece of writing to which you then add a context," also warns Emile Schrijver, director of the Jewish Cultural Quarter in Amsterdam, which includes the Jewish Historical Museum. "You have to assume quite a few things to get this definitive, which I think is complicated.''
Still, he is pleased that the investigation exonerates many other suspects for good. "There's one scenario left and it's more likely than all the others," he thinks, despite all the question marks. He hopes that further investigation can clarify more details.
The research team itself admits that there are still holes in the theory. But Van Twisk hopes that these can be plugged precisely with the publication of these theories. "It may well be that if attention is paid to it now, people will come forward and say: I have also had such an anonymous letter."
Too much time elapsed
Still, FBI investigator Vince Pankoke, who cooperated with the investigation, thinks he has a strong circumstantial case against Van den Bergh. "Only this theory comes close to a solution and is the only one that is consistent with all the explanations, clues and the sometimes misleading behavior of Otto Frank, and Miep Gies who helped the family. And it is the first and only theory with physical evidence that points to a traitor."
"Would I have preferred irrefutable evidence? Of course. But for a
smoking gun, too much time has passed."
Barnouw also remains concerned that the truth will never come out, even with new investigative methods. "There was some incredibly grand stuff about big data that they went off on with the computer," he says. However, one of the problems with this part of World War II is that there is so little data."
He continues to reckon that dumb luck led to the raid, as unsatisfactory as that is.
Translated with
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