Canadian author Rosemary Sullivan defends controversial Anne Frank book

TORONTO — A Canadian author and academic is standing by the research in her controversial book about Anne Frank after a Dutch publisher pulled the title in response to the latest round of criticism of its claims about who betrayed the Jewish teenage diarist and her family during the Second World War.

Rosemary Sullivan, who wrote “The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation” but was not involved the research process, said in a statement on Thursday that she has “full confidence” in the investigation led by retired FBI agent Vince Pankoke.

The cold case team alleges that the person who revealed the location of the Frank family’s secret annex hiding place in Amsterdam was likely a prominent Jewish notary, Arnold van den Bergh, who they say gave the information to the German occupiers to save his own family from deportation and death in Nazi concentration camps.

A group of Dutch historians released an in-depth criticism of the team’s work this week concluding that the “accusation does not hold water” and characterizing the findings as “a shaky house of cards.”

The book’s Dutch publisher, Ambo Anthos, repeated an earlier apology and announced Tuesday night it was withdrawing the book.

A spokeswoman for HarperCollins Canada, which will continue to publish the book, maintained that “the investigation was done with respect and the utmost care for an extremely sensitive topic.”

The publisher declined a request for an interview with Sullivan. In her statement, the professor emeritus at University of Toronto said Pankoke has published a rebuttal on his website refuting the criticism of the team’s findings.

“It is the critics who refer to Van den Bergh as a ‘traitor,'” said Sullivan. “The team is always careful to see him as a victim whose motive was to save his family from deportation and death under the Nazi occupation.”

A poet and biographer, Sullivan has won a slew of awards for her non-fiction works, including 2016’s “Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva.”

The Frank family and four other Jews hid in the annex, which was reached by a secret staircase hidden behind a bookcase, from July 1942 until they were discovered in August 1944 and deported to concentration camps.

Anne and her sister died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Anne was 15. 

Only Anne’s father, Otto Frank, survived the Holocaust. He published her diary after the Second World War and it quickly became an enduring symbol of loss and resilience, read by millions around the world.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 24, 2022.

Adina Bresge, The Canadian Press