The city of Amsterdam has asked the American publisher HarperCollins to remove her name from the acknowledgments of the controversial non-fiction book The Betrayal of Anne Frank. He reports that Mirror citing a letter from Amsterdam Deputy Mayor Alexander Scholtes. The Dutch capital supported the research for the book once with 100,000 euros. After the publication of the English and Dutch editions in January last year, there was heavy criticism from Anne Frank experts.
“The city of Amsterdam,” said Deputy Mayor Scholtes in the letter to HarperCollins boss Brian Murray, “was in no way actively involved in the book and has now emphatically distanced itself from it.” They urge him “therefore urgently to remove the name Amsterdam from this work”.
The planned German edition of the book, which was to be entitled “The Betrayal of Anne Frank – An Investigation” and was to be published at the end of March 2022, has not yet been published. The Dutch publisher withdrew the work after the criticism. It’s still available in English, and a paperback edition even came out earlier this year, suggesting that the hardcover volume sold at least passably.
‘Evidence still lacks strength, according to authoritative scientists’
The book is based on research by a so-called “cold case team” led by Dutch documentary filmmaker Thijs Bayens and former FBI agent Vince Pankoke, according to which Anne Frank was not betrayed by a Dutch Nazi collaborator, as previously assumed, but by a leading member of the Amsterdam Jewish Council, the Jewish notary Arnold van den Bergh. When examining archival material, the team said they worked with artificial intelligence.
However, the result of the investigation, which runs completely counter to the findings of serious research and also serves anti-Semitic resentments, quickly turned out to be extremely vulnerable. After serious objections from experts, the team finally had to admit that they could not say for sure who the traitor was.
Corresponding changes were made for the English-language paperback edition. However, they do not go far enough for the deputy mayor of Amsterdam: “According to authoritative scientists, the evidence and the arguments are still not sound.” In his letter, Scholtes also points out “how painful the Second World War and the Holocaust are for the Jewish and many other residents of Amsterdam and their families and descendants. Research into the irreparable suffering and injustice inflicted on the Jewish population during the Second World War should be undertaken with the utmost care.”