Anne Frank, a teenage Holocaust victim whose diary described her family’s two years in hiding from the German occupation of the Netherlands, was most likely betrayed by a Jewish notary, a new investigation said Monday.
Arnold van den Bergh, a prominent member of the country's Jewish population at the time, may have revealed the Frank family’s hiding place to save his own family from deportation and murder in Nazi concentration camps, said Dutch public broadcaster NOS, citing the probe.
An international cold case team of about 30 researchers, including historians and criminologists, conducted six years of research using modern techniques to find out who betrayed Anne Frank, whose wartime diaries are a classic of Holocaust literature.
Collecting 66 gigabytes of information – old and new interviews, diaries, directories and war files from archives – and using artificial intelligence to analyze it, the cold case team examined some 30 theories.
The outcome was that Van den Bergh betrayed Anne Frank and her family.
However, NOS noted that the findings are not certain, and questions surrounding the case still remain.
Speaking to NOS, Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House, reiterated that further research into the theory is necessary.
"You have to be very careful about sending someone down in history as a traitor to Anne Frank if you are not 100% or 200% sure about that," he said.
Leopold described the investigation of the cold case team as very good and careful but noted that the important puzzle pieces are still missing.
