Retired FBI agent has new idea about who betrayed Anne Frank’s household to Nazis

Anne Frank in 1940. A new book, <em>The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation</em>, by Rosemary Sullivan, claims that a retired FBI special agent and a team of investigators have solved the mystery of who betrayed the Frank family to the Nazis.

Enlarge / Anne Frank in 1940. A brand new guide, The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Chilly Case Investigation, by Rosemary Sullivan, claims {that a} retired FBI particular agent and a workforce of investigators have solved the thriller of who betrayed the Frank household to the Nazis. (credit score: Public area)

Former FBI particular agent Vincent Pankoke was trying ahead to a calming retirement hanging out on the seaside when he left the company. As a substitute, he was drawn into fixing a well-known chilly case: the query of who betrayed Anne Frank and her household to the Nazis, resulting in their arrest and deportation to a focus camp. Solely the daddy, Otto Frank, survived. To seek out his personal reply to that query, Pankoke assembled his personal crack workforce of dogged investigators. They spent 5 years poring over each little bit of pertinent materials, organising an in depth on-line database, and growing an AI program to assist them sift by all of it and discover new connections.

Whereas admitting that the case is circumstantial and a few cheap doubt stays, Pankoke et al. consider the probably wrongdoer is a person named Arnold van den Bergh, a neighborhood Jewish chief who could have handed over lists of addresses the place fellow Jews have been hiding to the Nazis so as to defend his circle of relatives. The Pankoke workforce’s story was featured in a phase on 60 Minutes earlier this week (see video at finish of submit) and is roofed intimately in a brand new guide by Rosemary Sullivan, The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Chilly Case Investigation.

Thousands and thousands of individuals have learn The Diary of Anne Frank because it was first printed posthumously in 1947. It has been translated into 70 languages and impressed a theatrical play and subsequent Oscar-winning 1959 movie, that includes Millie Perkins within the title position. Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany, however the household fled the nation and settled in Amsterdam after Adolf Hitler got here to energy. They did not flee fairly far sufficient: the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands started in Might 1940 and finally compelled the Franks (and plenty of different Jews) into hiding.

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