Who betrayed Anne Frank and her family?
A cold case investigation has identified a leading suspect:
Jewish notary Arnold van den Bergh
in the mystery of how the Nazis found the hiding place
of the famous Jewish diarist in 1944
LOCATION: Amsterdam, Netherlands
The investigating team says the crucial piece of new evidence
is an unsigned note to Anne's father Otto
The note specifically names Van den Bergh
and alleges he passed on the information to the Nazis
in an attempt to save his own family
(SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR OF ANNE FRANK HOUSE, RONALD LEOPOLD, SAYING:
"First of all, I think what this new theory is bringing us is not just information about what has happened here on August 4, 1944, but very much also about the behavior of people, the choices they have made, decisions they have taken during a very difficult period of time and I think the information the team came up with it gives us again, I would say, insights in ourselves, in what it means to be human under very difficult circumstances."
Some other experts emphasized the evidence was not conclusive
Anne and seven other Jews were discovered by the Nazis in August 1944
after they had hid for nearly two years in a secret annex
above a canal-side warehouse in Amsterdam
All were deported and Anne died in a concentration camp at age 15
