The book, by Rosemary Sullivan, chronicles the work of an investigative team led by a retired FBI agent that identified \u201cwith 85% certainty\u201d a notary named Arnold van den Bergh as the person who directed German forces to the Amsterdam hiding place of the teenage diarist, her parents and sister.<\/p>\n
But in the weeks after the release, Dutch historians, European Jewish leaders and other authors protested the book, saying that it unfairly impugned a long-dead Dutch Jew without adequate evidence. Some presented evidence suggesting that, rather than being the likely culprit in a historical mystery, van den Bergh was being smeared.<\/p>\n
Amid this pressure, the book\u2019s publisher, Ambo Anthos, suspended sales of the Dutch-language translation of the book last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were obvious problems with the research, and probably the last thing that Ambo Anthos wanted was an authors\u2019 walkout,\u201d Johannes Houwink ten Cate, professor emeritus of Holocaust and genocide studies at the University of Amsterdam, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.<\/p>\n
But the book remains widely available outside of the Netherlands. Its selection as a Costco pick means that millions of Americans will see a direct appeal to buy and read it, and many likely will. The books was featured on an episode of \u201c60 Minutes\u201d on Jan. 16.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can still remember the effect Anne Frank\u2019s The Diary of a Young Girl had on me,\u201d a Costco book buyer named Alex Kanenwisher wrote in the company\u2019s February newsletter. \u201cSo I am very excited to share this month\u2019s book buyer\u2019s pick, The Betrayal of Anne Frank by Rosemary Sullivan.\u201d The newsletter called the book a \u201cmodern whodunit.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the book\u2019s critics, the whodunit remains far from solved. They point to details from van den Bergh\u2019s life, including that he himself had gone into hiding before the Frank family was betrayed and that investigators had cleared him of Nazi collaboration after the war, to argue that it\u2019s impossible to conclude that he had given up the family\u2019s location.<\/p>\n
Pieter van Twisk, the lead researcher of the cold-case team, told JTA that those facts didn\u2019t refute the book\u2019s conclusion.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople in hiding often were pressured or extorted into cooperation,\u201d van Twisk wrote in an email approved by Vince Pankoke, the retired FBI agent who led the team. \u201dAs long as you could provide things of value (gold, jewellery, money, stocks, paintings and yes addresses etc.) they might have left you alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Pankoke and his team have publicly stood by their conclusions, they said in a statement on their website that it was \u201cvery unwise\u201d to assert that the conclusion was \u201c85%\u201d accurate. \u201cThis does not represent the degree of certainty\u201d of the study\u2019s results, they wrote in Dutch.<\/p>\n
The European Jewish Congress, which represents dozens of Jewish communities in Europe, has formally called for the book to be rescinded. Naming a Jewish culprit in a mystery that has transfixed people of all backgrounds could be \u201cpotentially incendiary\u201d at a time of rising antisemitism, the group wrote in a letter to the book\u2019s publisher.<\/p>\n
There is no indication that the challenges against the book will change its distribution in the United States, where the book is featured prominently in many bookstores. HarperCollins\u2019 main offices and several regional publishers have not replied to JTA\u2019s requests for comment on the criticism of the book.<\/p>\n
Costco\u2019s promotion of the book is \u201ccontinuing the trend of Americans wanting less to directly talk about the Holocaust and more to talk near it,\u201d tweeted Maris Kreizman, a Jewish author who hosts a podcast about books.<\/p>\n
Critics fear that the more the book is read, the more likely it is that van den Bergh will forever be suspected of betraying his fellow Jews.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe debate that\u2019s happening in the Netherlands is not happening at the same level in Canada and in the United States,\u201d ten Cate said. \u201cThat means that I\u2019m not sure that the genie released by the cold case study is ever going back into the bottle.\u201d<\/p>\n
The controversy is rippling over into Germany. There, the publisher of the German-language translation, J\u00fcrgen Welte, announced it was performing \u201can internal review\u201d ahead of the intended release date of March 22.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter two professional edits of the manuscript, we are currently undergoing an internal review,\u201d J\u00fcrgen Welte said in a statement. \u201cThe comparatively late publication date of the German-language edition shows that we are handling this sensitive topic extremely responsibly.\u201d<\/p>\n
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