The controversy over the name of the deliverer of Anne Frank and her family has been settled in recent hours with the decision to stop printing the book in which a notary is mentioned as being responsible for the denunciation.
The Dutch publisher Ambo Anthos reported it on Tuesday, arguing that there are doubts about the investigation that points to Arnold van den Bergh. “We offer our sincerest apologies to anyone who may be offended by the book”They reported in a statement.
Is about The betrayal of Anne Frank, which went on sale last January 18. Its author, Rosemary Sullivan, points to Van den Bergh, a man of solid position in the Jewish community of Amsterdam, as the one who would have given away the hiding place to protect his family.
Anne Frank, her parents and her sister, along with four other people, remained in an attic for two years, until the Nazis entered by force on August 4, 1944. The eight occupants went to extermination camps. Only Otto, Ana’s father, was saved. After the war, the publication of the diary that the teenager kept during her hiding place became one of the most harrowing testimonies of the Holocaust.
Sullivan has had to deal with controversy in recent days. Erik Somers, from the NIOD institute, specialized in World War II, questioned the rigor of Sullivan and his team, made up of former members of the FBI. “They seem to be working from the point of view that van den Bergh was guilty and they found a motive to fit that”, he stated. The basis for the accusation against the notary is an anonymous letter received by Otto Frank in 1946.
The decision caught Sullivan and his team by surprise. One of the researchers, Pieter van Twisk, assured that the group is “completely shocked” by the publisher’s decision; and that even a week ago there was a meeting with the editors regarding a “detailed reaction later” post.
The controversy occurs at a time when Neflix premieres his film My great friend Anne Frank. The film focuses on Hannah Goslar, the best friend of young Ana. Both met in Germany, before going to Amsterdam after the rise of Nazism, and met again in the Bergen-Belsen camp, where Ana met her death, while Hannah could be saved and today he is 93 years old.