80 years on, questions still remain about how Anne Frank was discovered
‘I keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if … if only there were no other people in the world.’
Anne Frank wrote this in her last diary entry on August 1, 1944. Three days later, the 15-year-old was arrested on her 761st day of hiding in the secret annex above her father’s business.
Alongside her mother, father, sister, and four others, she was thrown into a vehicle and taken for interrogation, before later being transported to a concentration camp.
After the chaos of the arrest and search of the annex, Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl, who had helped the Franks for years as they hid, discovered pages of Anne’s diary littered on the floor.
They would never see her again. Anne died of typhus alongside her sister Margot in February 1945 in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
80 years after their discovery in the secret annex, questions remain about how Fritz Pfeffer, the Franks and the Van Pels were handed over to the authorities.
For years it’s been said shortly before the raid, an anonymous caller tipped off the German Security Service to the hiding area.
In 2022, it was suggested Anne may have been betrayed by a Jewish businessman who handed the family’s address to the Nazis.
Arnold van den Bergh was named as a suspect by a team of experts, but they admitted the evidence was ‘circumstantial’.
Historian Dr Gertjan Broek spoke to Metro about the group’s final days living in hiding. He suggests that the question ‘Who betrayed Anne Frank?’ is not what should be asked 80 years on from her arrest.
Instead, ‘Why did the raid happen? And on what information was it based?’
Thinking someone gave them up is an ‘understandable assumption’, because things like that did happen often when Europe was occupied in the second World War, Dr Broek said.
He told Metro.co.uk: ‘There’s different reasons to believe that authorities came to the building on purpose because there were things going on in that building that the German authorities and the Dutch authorities didn’t approve of – illegal trading of food stuffs.
‘They may have found hidden people by chance.’
The layout of the building where Anne was hiding was commonly known in Amsterdam, Dr Broek said – meaning officers might have known an annex was a common feature of the building.
He added: ‘Two of the detectives were Dutch. They were both in the Amsterdam detective squad for over twenty years and had been looking through those buildings.
‘I’m certain they knew the layout. They may have camouflaged that bookcase, but it wouldn’t hold up against the detectives.’
On that day, the arrests included 10 people. Eight Jews in hiding and two non-Jews, the managers of the company in the building.
They were taken to a German police station and separated, then locked up before being taken to concentration camps.
The whole group was sent to Auschwitz on September 3. Otto Frank remained in Auschwitz and survived.
Anne, Margot and Mrs Van Pels, Peter’s mother, were taken to Bergen Belsen, while Friedrich Pfeffer died in Neuengamme.
Edith Frank died in Auschwitz. Hermann van Pels died there too. Peter died in Mauthausen.
80 years ago, their tragic fate was decided when officers stumbled across their hiding place in the secret annex.
‘The fourth of August was not just another day,’ Dr Broek said.
‘It was a difficult moment in all those people’s lives. For those hiding, and the non-Jews helping them.’
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