It is the human stories amidst the grotesque horrors of the Holocaust which often stand out. Perhaps the most famous is the tale of Anne Frank, the young Jewish girl whose poignant diary illuminated the horrors of the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews.
Tragically, Anne and her family’s secret refuge in Amsterdam was found by the Nazis in 1944, a horrifying end to Anne’s story. But in this discovery lies a mystery: for decades, historians, special police, and amateur sleuths have puzzled over how the Nazis found Anne’s hideaway.
Despite all this research and much speculation, the identity of the informant has remained elusive. Were Anne and her family betrayed by a close friend, neighbor, or confidant? Or did the Nazis just get lucky? Some researchers think they have the answer.
Anne Frank and the Holocaust
Anne Frank was a German-born Jewish girl who gained posthumous fame through her diary, which documented her family’s life during the Nazis’ occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. Born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany, Anne’s family fled to Amsterdam in 1933, hoping to escape persecution at the hands of the Nazis. Sadly, by 1942, they were forced to hide in a secret annex above her father’s business to escape the horrors of deportation to a concentration camp.
Anne spent two years holed up in that annex, chronicling her thoughts, hopes, dreams, and fears in her diary. Tragically, her family’s refuge was uncovered, leading to their arrest by the nefarious Gestapo. Anne and her sister Margot were transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; they died just a few short weeks before Allied liberation.
Anne’s father, Otto Frank, was the only member of his family to survive the camps. He later discovered Anne’s diary after the war and released it to the public. Translated into numerous languages, the diary stands as a reminder of the indomitable human spirit and the enduring legacy of those lost to the Holocaust.
The facts as we know them are these: on the morning of August 4th, 1944, the annex where Anne and her family were hiding was stormed by German police known as Grune Polizei led by SS-Oberscharführer Karl Silberbauer. Some of the police officers were later identified by Otto Frank and his helpers as the Austrian Karl Silberbauer, and Dutch officers Gezinus Gringhuis and Willem Grootendorst. The involvement of both Gezinus Gringhuis and Willem Grootendorst was also confirmed later.
The Franks, the other family they were hiding with, the Van Pelses, and another Jew, Pfeffer, were arrested and hauled away to the local RHSA HQ, where they were held, interrogated, and kept overnight. The following day, they were sent to the Huis van Bewaring (House of Detention), an overcrowded prison.
Two days later, they were moved to an interim camp before being split up and sent off to separate camps. Horribly, since they had been found hiding, the Nazis labeled everyone found in the annex as criminals, the children included. This meant they were sent to each camp’s punishment barracks, where they were forced to do hard labor.
Was Anne’s Family Informed On?
For many years, it has been claimed that Anne’s family was betrayed and that an informer told the Nazis where to look. Otto Frank himself was convinced of this and spent years trying to find the culprit. There were several suspects.
It was long thought that the Germans had received an anonymous telephone tip on August 4, 1944, that led to the raid. The source of this claim was SD officer Silberbauer. When pressed by Nazi hunters years later, Silberbauer’s story changed several times. At first, he claimed the caller was an anonymous Dutchman, but he later stated it was a local warehouse worker, Willem van Maaren.
Those who helped the hiding Jews knew Maaren and did not trust him. This suspicion was shared by the Franks, even though they didn’t know him. Anne even made references to the warehouse worker in her diary.
After the war, Otto filed a complaint against Maaren, claiming he had played a role in his family’s capture. Officials disagreed, however, and due to a lack of evidence, quashed Otto’s complaint.
Another officer, Julius Dettmann, is said to have claimed it was a woman who made the phone call. Dettmann, however, died not long after liberation, and his story was never corroborated. The story has long since been deemed unreliable.
For some years, a popular suspect has been Tony Ahlers, a Dutch national socialist who had a history with Otto Frank. Supposedly early on in the war, Frank had criticized Germany’s chances, which led to Ahler’s extorting money from Frank. The sour relationship between the two men led some to point the finger at Ahlers. Once again, there is no concrete evidence that he was involved.
Anne Frank’s biographer, Melissa Muller, believed Lena Hartog was the traitor. Her husband worked in the warehouse where the annex was located and told his wife about people hiding in it. However, it’s unclear if he told her before or after the arrest. Lena is said to have told a friend about the people in hiding, but again, it is unknown when she told her friend.
Ans van Djik was a Jewish woman who turned informant after being arrested by the Gestapo. She was offered a deal: be deported or help police track other Jews. She turned in countless Jews, the Franks may have been among them.
While most of these are possible, they share a common thread: a lack of evidence. In recent years, this has become even more of a trend, with “Cold Case” experts pointing the finger at suspects without offering any evidence.
In 2022, The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation claimed Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish businessman and member of the Jewish Council in Holland, had betrayed those hiding in the annex. These councils were rightly unpopular, set up by the Nazis to set members of the Jewish community against each other. The researchers believe Arnold sold out Anne’s family to save his own but provided no evidence.
An Open Question
It goes without saying that those who corroborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust deserved to be caught. At this point, the list of people accused of betraying the Franks is so long that it’s impossible to detail it here. The culprit’s identity, if indeed there is one, has never been confirmed.
In recent years, the Anne Frank House has moved away from the idea that the Franks were betrayed. Instead, it seems likely that in order to hide the Jews, those helping them broke laws that attracted unwanted attention. Two of the helpers were arrested for using illegal coupons, and Victor Kugler, director of the warehouse shielding the annex, kept income off the books to help the Jews.
In our race to find answers, we must remember the importance of facts. Dragging people’s names through the mud just so that we can claim to have solved a mystery, isn’t detective work. With everyone involved now dead, the sad truth is that the real cause of the Franks’ capture will likely never be found. Rather than focus on the cause, perhaps we should focus on making sure these kinds of events never occur again.
Top Image: Over the years since WW2 many have concluded that Anne Frank and her family were betrayed, but the truth is far from clear. Source: Unknown Author / Public Domain.
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