Anne Frank and her family successfully hid from the Nazi Party for several years before they were found. Since then, historians have speculated how the Frank family was discovered and if a betrayal was involved. A Dutch publisher called Ambo Anthos recently released a book by author Rosemary Sullivan that claims the Frank family was betrayed by none other than a fellow Jewish man. It turns out, the accusations were extremely false.
The Betrayal of Anne Frank was created with the help of an investigation team that included an ex-FBI agent. The group combined documents with modern technology to narrow in on who may have betrayed the Frank family. They concluded that the family’s hiding place was exposed by a Jewish man named Arnold van den Bergh in exchange for the protection of his family. When the book’s conclusion was released to the world, The Anne Frank Fund made a statement saying the investigation was “full of errors.”
Ambo Anthos has stopped publication for the book, apologizing to those readers who may have been offended by the book’s contents. An investigator who contributed to the book stated that its conclusions were “at least 85%” accurate, with some room for error and should not be taken as absolute truth. The book’s English publisher HarperCollins has not made a statement on the story’s controversy.
To read about how Anne Frank’s diary impacted how we record history, click here.
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