Five people who were suspected of betraying Anne Frank
19-01-2022
Western Europe
L. Vogelaar, RD
Who betrayed the Frank family and the others? That is still a secret of history. Photo RD, Anton Dommerholt
Western Europe
Were diarist Anne Frank and the seven other hiding people discovered? Or have they been betrayed deliberately? There has been a lot of speculation about that. Hereby five names of people who have been suspected throughout the years.
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What happened?
The most famous woman-in-hiding in the world was captured on August 4th, 1944. Six months later, at the age of 15, she succumbed to the miserable conditions in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Anne Frank died in her native country: she came from Frankfurt am Main. After the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, the Frank family moved to Amsterdam.
Anne was just 13 when she went into hiding on July 6th 1942, with her father Otto, mother Edith and sister Margot. A week later, Otto Frank's business partner Hermann van Pels, his wife Auguste and their son Peter disappeared behind the bookcase that hid the door to their illegal residence. Four months later, an eighth person in hiding was added: Fritz Pfeffer.
For more than two years, they managed to stay out of the hands of the Germans. A small group of helpers took care of their provisions. Early on, Anne eloquently described how she experienced her stay in confinement and how the tensions between the people in hiding, who were close to each other, sometimes ran high.
There was always the danger of discovery. However, the arrest came suddenly. In the vestibule, the warehouse doors were open when a German car pulled up in front of 263 Prinsengracht one warm summer morning. Austrian SS-Hauptscharführer Karl Silberbauer and four or five Dutch officers from the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) quickly searched the building, found the bookcase soon, and turned it open. They took the people in hiding out of their residence.
It took a long time before the truck that had been ordered arrived that was large enough to take all the hidden people.
Who was the traitor?
Five individuals have been named as possible traitors over the years:
Willem van Maaren (1895-1971)
Warehouse manager in Opekta, Otto Frank's company. He was known for being curious. The helpers of the people in hiding doubted his reliability. During an investigation in 1948, Van Maaren denied any involvement in the assault. He did say that at the time, he suspected that something was going on in the rear part of the company building. Incidentally, Van Maaren never sympathised with the Nazis or anti-Semitism; on the contrary.
He was acquitted. A new interrogation followed in 1963, after the commander of the assault, Karl Silberbauer, was discovered in Austria. Again, without result.
Lena Hartog-van Bladeren (1897-1963)
Cleaning lady in Otto Frank's company, where her husband worked in the warehouse. She would have been concerned about her husband's safety if the people in hiding were discovered.
What is certain is that her husband knew two weeks before the raid that Jews were hidden. It is not sure, however, that he told his wife. It is also not logical that she would have called the SD when her husband was at work and was therefore in danger.
Tony Ahlers (1917-2000)
He was a Dutch National Socialist who sometimes provided the Amsterdam Gestapo with information. He became acquainted with Otto Frank in 1941, and after the war, he tried to blackmail Frank. Carol Ann Lee accused him of betrayal in her 2002 biography of Otto Frank. Ahlers' wife denied the accusation, but others, such as Ahlers' brother and son, confirmed it. However, all claims were based on statements made by Ahlers himself. And he was known to mess with the truth quite often.
Nelly Voskuijl (1923-2001)
She was the younger sister of Bep Voskuijl, one of the helpers of the people in hiding. She had a relationship with an Austrian officer and worked for the Germans in France. "You go to your Jews", she is said to have bitten her sister and father during a family quarrel. However, there are no indications that she was the traitor.
Ans van Dijk (1905-1948)
The only woman to receive the death sentence in the Netherlands after the war. She was Jewish herself, but she betrayed hundreds of her fellow citizens. At the beginning of August 1944, she has passed on an address on Prinsengracht to the Germans by telephone. Many addresses she betrayed were in the vicinity of the Secret Annex, where the Franks were. However, there is no more concrete indication.
This article was translated by CNE.news and published in Dutch in Reformatorisch Dagblad on January 17th, 2022
