The raid on Anne Frank’s Amsterdam hiding place may have been over illegal trade in food rations and other issues and not the result of betrayal, new research suggests.
On Dec. 16, the Anne Frank House in the Dutch capital published the results of its research into what led policemen working for the Nazi occupation authorities to the home of the family of the teenage Jewish diarist, whose writing became world famous after she perished at the age of 15 in a concentration camp.
The findings are potentially controversial because the story of Anne Frank is seen as emblematic both of Dutch heroism during the Holocaust and of collaboration with the Nazis — for which Dutch prime ministers have consistently declined to apologize despite calls to do so.
“The question has always been: Who betrayed Anne Frank and the others in hiding? This explicit focus on betrayal, however, limits the perspective on the arrest,” the Anne Frank House wrote in the five-page summary of the new study, which also relies on entries from Anne’s diary.
The entries, the study suggests, show the hiding house on Prinsengracht 263 was tied to activities punishable under the Nazi occupation in addition to Dutch underground fighters’ sheltering of Jews there.
“Anne Frank’s diary did provide an interesting new clue,” the study reads. “Beginning on March 10, 1944, she repeatedly wrote about the arrest of two men who dealt in illegal ration cards. She calls them ‘B’ and ‘D,’ referring to the salesmen Martin Brouwer and Pieter Daatzelaar.”
The two men represented Gies & Co., a company affiliated with the Opekta firm owned by Anne Frank’s father, Otto, and located on Prinsengracht 263.
“B. and D. have been caught, so we have no coupons,” Anne Frank wrote on March 14, 1944. “This clearly indicates,” the study states, “that the people in hiding got at least part of their ration coupons from these salesmen.”
Other evidence shows people associated with Prinsengracht 263 were punished by the Nazi occupation for evading work.
The assumption has always been that agents working for the occupation “were specifically looking for Jews in hiding” when they raided the hiding place, the authors wrote. — jta