On Thursday, March 22, a team of historians from The Netherlands presented their critical report on the book ‘The Betrayal of Anne Frank’, at the Lutheran Church in Amsterdam. In this book, the Jewish notary Arnold van den Bergh is brought forward as the likely betrayer of Anne Frank and her family. However, the research team comes to an entirely different conclusion: the accusations toward Van den Bergh are not at all convincing. ‘Unfortunately, it is clear that the investigation was conducted amateurishly and, due to misinterpretation and tunnel vision, also wrongly identifies Arnold van den Bergh as Anne Frank’s betrayer.’
The bilingual (Dutch-English) report was written by historians Bart van der Boom, Petra van den Boomgaard, Aaldrik Hermans, Raymund Schütz, Laurien Vastenhout and Bart Wallet. The English version is available to read here and to download in the sidebar of this post.
Mirjam de Gorter, the granddaughter of Van den Berg, held an impressive speech at the Lutheran Church. In her speech, she shared her experiences with the self-appointed ‘Cold Case Team’ that appointed her grandfather as the likely betrayer, and she gave her unfiltered opinion about the publication. ‘This case is not about me, but about the whole context of the story in which, out of the blue, my grandfather Arnold van den Bergh has been portrayed worldwide as a Jewish scapegoat.’ Lastly, she appealed to American publisher HarperCollins and other publishers to remove the book from the market and to not let potential TV-producers use the book for a film or TV-series. The speech by Mirjam de Gorter is available to read here and to download in the sidebar of this post.