Dutch Writer of ‘The Betrayal of Anne Frank’ Halts Publication

AMSTERDAM — A Dutch writer has mentioned that it’ll not publish a best-selling e book, “The Betrayal of Anne Frank,” which claimed to establish the informant who alerted Nazi police to the teenage diarist’s hiding place, due to doubts about its conclusions.

The writer, Ambo Anthos, which launched the Dutch translation of the e book by the creator Rosemary Sullivan in January, mentioned on Tuesday that it could halt publication in response to a “refutation” by 5 distinguished Dutch historians that known as the findings into query.

“Primarily based on the conclusions of this report, we’ve got determined that, efficient instantly, the e book will not be accessible,” Ambo Anthos, which had apologized for the e book final month, wrote in a statement on its web site. “We are going to name upon bookstores to return their inventory.”

“The Betrayal of Anne Frank” obtained worldwide consideration in January after a self-described “chilly case group” led by a retired F.B.I. investigator whose work fashioned the idea for the e book was featured on the CBS Information program “60 Minutes.”

The group accused Arnold van den Bergh, a Dutch Jewish notary, of pointing the Nazi police to the handle of Prinsengracht 263, the placement of the key annex in Amsterdam the place the Frank household and 4 different Jews had been hiding for 2 years.

Historians and different specialists on World Warfare II and the Holocaust in a short time expressed doubts about the finding, questioning a central premise of its argument: that the notary had lists of Jewish hiding locations that have been compiled by the Amsterdam Jewish Council, a corporation the occupying Nazis had arrange in 1941.

Pieter van Twisk, the lead researcher for the cold-case challenge, mentioned in an interview with The New York Occasions on the time that the proof for the lists was “circumstantial, however circumstantial proof remains to be proof.”

On Tuesday night time, Bart Pockets, a professor of Jewish Research on the College of Amsterdam, summarized the findings of the refutation, written by Raymund Schütz, an knowledgeable on Dutch notaries in the course of the German occupation; two specialists on the Amsterdam Jewish Council, Laurien Vastenhout and Bart van der Increase; and two different researchers, Petra van den Boomgaard and Aaldrik Hermans.

“We felt we needed to step in as a result of we owed it to our self-discipline,” Professor Pockets mentioned. “For such a declare to be made,” he added, the historic context “needed to be strong as a rock.” However he mentioned, this was “not the case, by no means.”

“It’s clear that the argumentation doesn’t maintain up,” he concluded. “Resulting from misinterpretation and tunnel imaginative and prescient, the investigation wrongly identifies Arnold van den Bergh as Anne Frank’s betrayer.”

Mirjam de Gorter, granddaughter of Arnold van den Bergh, had made an emotional public enchantment to HarperCollins at an event where the report was released, asking that the writer concern a retraction and stop publication.

She mentioned that she had repeatedly knowledgeable the investigators and the creator of the placement the place her grandfather and his household have been in the summertime of 1944, when Anne Frank was betrayed. They ignored her, she mentioned, and claimed that Mr. van den Bergh had gained his freedom by giving up addresses to the Nazis.

“My grandfather, Arnold van den Bergh, has been portrayed worldwide as a world scapegoat,” she mentioned. “In the meantime, Anne Frank’s worldwide prominence is exploited in a very dishonest method.”

Ambo Anthos had beforehand paused printing and distribution of the e book. “A extra important stance might have been taken right here,” wrote Tanja Hendriks, writer and director of the corporate. Ms. Hendriks didn’t reply to requests for touch upon Wednesday.

The writer’s web site now states, “We’d as soon as once more like to supply our honest apologies to everybody who has been offended by the contents of this e book.”

Mr. van Twisk, Ms. Sullivan and the documentary filmmaker Thijs Bayens, who was a member of the group that was assembled to establish Anne Franks’s betrayer, additionally didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark. The cold-case group’s lead investigator, the previous F.B.I. detective, Vince Pankoke, has beforehand issued a defense of the work, nonetheless.

“Till now, we’ve got not been introduced with any piece of proof or any new info that had sufficient power to problem our conclusion,” he famous earlier than the refutation was launched. “The van den Bergh situation is, in our opinion, nonetheless probably the most viable concept concerning the betrayal of the Prinsengracht 263.”

HarperCollins U.S., which launched the e book on Jan. 17 with plans to publish it in additional than 20 languages, has thus far supplied no response to the criticisms.