Anne Frank
(Picture: DPA)The Dutch publisher of a controversial book looking into the betrayal of Anne Frank has said it is recalling it “immediately” after a damning report on the book’s findings.
The book, The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation by Canadian author Rosemary Sullivan, has attracted criticism since its release in January.
In it, Jewish notary Arnold van den Bergh is accused of revealing the Frank family’s secret hiding place to the Nazis.
It concludes he probably gave up their location to save his own family.
On Tuesday, a damning report led by World War Two experts and historians, concluded the book did not stand up to scrutiny.
The report contradicted the book’s findings, calling its work “amateurish”.
“There is not any serious evidence for this grave accusation,” it said.
The book’s investigating team, led by a retired FBI investigator, spent six years on on the case.
They previously said they stood by their research and never claimed to have uncovered the entire truth.
Following the release of the report in the Netherlands, publisher Ambos Anthos said it was recalling the book from shelves “effectively immediately”.
The publisher, Ambos Anthos told the Guardian: “Based on the conclusions of this report, we have decided that effective immediately, the book will no longer be available. We will call upon bookstores to return their stock.“
Pressure is now mounting on British publisher HarperCollins to pull its UK edition.
The granddaughter of accused van den Bergh is also calling on HarperCollins to drop the English-language edition.
“With this story, you are exploiting the story of Anne Frank, you are falsifying history and you are contributing to great injustice,” she told the BBC.
Author Rosemary Sullivan told the Standard she had “full confidence in the investigation led by Vince Pankoke into the betrayal of Anne Frank”.
She said: “Certain critics have questioned the book’s conclusion: that a Jewish notary Arnold van den Bergh gave a list of anonymous addresses to the SD which included that of the secret Annex where Anne Frank and her family were hiding.
“This conclusion was reached in part because of the lengths to which Otto Frank and Miep Gies went to protect the identity of the betrayer.
“It is the critics who refer to Van den Bergh as a “traitor.” The team is always careful to see him as a victim whose motive was to save his family from deportation and death under the Nazi occupation.
“Without requesting a response from Pankoke and his team, the Dutch publisher AmboAthos printed an apology to anyone offended by the book and then withdrew the book.”
The book investigates the unsolved mystery of who alerted the Nazis to the hiding place of Anne Frank, her family and four other Jewish people in the summer of 1944.
Once discovered in a secret annex above a warehouse in Amsterdam, they were arrested and deported to concentration camps.
Anne Frank died aged 15 of typhus at Bergen-Belsen. Her diaries leading up to her death became world famous and a global bestseller.
Two official investigations were launched but the informant who betrayed the Frank family was never found.
The Standard has contacted HarperCollins for comment.
