Retired FBI agent aims to find out once and for all who betrayed Anne Frank
Using new data-mining techniques, a retired FBI agent is hoping to finally identify the person or people who told the Gestapo in 1944 about Anne Frank's hiding place in Amsterdam.
Vince Pankoke will lead a team of 19 forensic experts, including a historian and former detectives, as they comb through evidence and clues. The team will have access to the Anne Frank House's archives, and will look at witness statements and interviews. Pankoke is hopeful German records that were believed to be destroyed in a bombing are actually part of a declassified cache of documents in the U.S. National Archives, and might name the betrayer. "We are not trying to point fingers or prosecute," he told The Guardian. "I am just trying to solve the last case of my career. There is no statute of limitations on the truth."
For two years, Frank, her family, and four other Jewish people lived in a secret annex, helped by some of her father's employees. Following the betrayal, Frank was sent to several concentration camps, and she died in February 1945 at Bergen-Belsen, just 15 years old. Her father, Otto Frank, survived the Holocaust and published the diary she kept while in hiding, making Frank an enduring voice from World War II. Otto Frank always suspected that a warehouse worker named Wilhelm van Maaren tipped the Gestapo off about the annex, but Dutch authorities conducted two investigations and didn't find any hard evidence. The Anne Frank House also published a study suggesting the Gestapo may have found the annex by chance, not based on a tip, but researchers also didn't have any conclusive evidence to back up that theory.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
-
Today's political cartoons - October 13, 2024
Sunday's cartoons - the swing of things, fear of facts, and more
By The Week US Published
-
5 timely cartoons about climate change denial
Cartoons Artists take on textbook trouble, bizarre beliefs, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Kris Kristofferson: the free-spirited country music star who studied at Oxford
In the Spotlight The songwriter, singer and film-star has died aged 88
By The Week UK Published
-
Trump criminal trial starts with rulings, reminder
Speed Read The first day of his historic trial over hush money payments was mostly focused on jury selection
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Parents of school shooter sentenced to 10-15 years
Speed Read Jennifer and James Crumbley are the first parents to be convicted in a US mass shooting
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Unlicensed dealers and black market guns
Speed Read 68,000 illegally trafficked guns were sold in a five year period, said ATF
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Bankman-Fried gets 25 years for fraud
Speed Read Former "crypto king" Sam Bankman-Fried will report to federal prison
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Feds raid Diddy homes in alleged sex trafficking case
Speed Read Homeland Security raided the properties of hip hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
'Goon Squad' cops sentenced for torturing 2 Black men
Speed Read The former Mississippi law enforcement officers pleaded guilty last year
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Michigan shooter's dad guilty of manslaughter
speed read James Crumbley failed to prevent his son from killing four students at Oxford High School in 2021
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Shooting at Chiefs victory rally kills 1, injures 21
Speed Read Gunfire broke out at the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory parade in Missouri
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published