The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation(21)
At the beginning of 1944, a man named Lammert Hartog had been hired as an assistant to the new warehouse manager, Van Maaren. He’d been recommended by Petrus Genot, who worked with Kleiman’s brother in his extermination business. Hartog’s wife, Lena, who occasionally cleaned the Opekta offices, had also interceded to get her husband the job.
At the end of June, Petrus Genot approached Kleiman’s brother and warned him that Hartog’s wife had casually asked his wife if it was true that Jews were hiding at Prinsengracht 263. Anna Genot had been aghast. How could Lena be spreading such gossip in these dangerous times? Anna told her to be very careful with such talk. But Lena mentioned the same thing to Bep, who also told her that she shouldn’t be so casual with that kind of information.7
Terrified, Bep then spoke to Kugler and Kleiman. What should they do? If Hartog, his wife, Lena, and maybe even Van Maaren all suspected that there were Jews in the Annex, somehow the information would leak out. Should they tell Otto? Was it time to try to move the eight to other premises? Maybe Anne and Margot could stay together, but how could they find seven hiding places? Would the Franks even agree to be separated? It was summer. People would be outdoors later. Could eight people be smuggled out of the building without being noticed? In the end they did nothing. It would be one of the painful memories they would have to fold into their experience—the feeling of guilt for withholding the warning from Otto. The Annex was raided two months later. If the helpers had moved everyone, would Otto Frank’s family, the Van Pelses, and Fritz Pfeffer have been saved?
12
Anatomy of a Raid
Kleiman remembered the morning of Friday, August 4, 1944, as warm and bright:
The sun was shining; we were working in the big office. . . . in the warehouse below us the spice mills were rumbling. When the sun was shining the trees along the canal and the water itself would often cast flecks of light on the ceiling and walls of the office, ripples of light that flickered and danced. It was an odd effect, but we knew then that it was fair outside.1
But it was on that day that the unthinkable happened. An IV B4 unit consisting of a German SD officer and at least three Dutch policemen raided Prinsengracht 263. They’d been informed that Jews were hiding there.
Karl Silberbauer, Otto, the four helpers, and the two warehouse workers all provided slightly different accounts of the raid. Not surprisingly, the accounts changed over the years, which is to be expected. Memory is fluid and inevitably alters over time. Official statements about the Annex raid were gathered from four to nineteen years after the event.
As part of the Arrest Tracking Project, Vince and the Cold Case Team put together a precise timeline of the raid based on witness statements, police reports, press interviews, and private correspondence:
9:00 a.m.: The Opekta/Gies & Co. office staff (Miep, Bep, Kugler, and Kleiman) arrive and start their day.
9:10 a.m.: Miep goes to the Annex and obtains the daily shopping list.2
10:00 a.m.: A call comes in to the IV B4 “Jew-hunting unit” located at the SD office, Euterpestraat 99, Amsterdam. The report is that there are Jews hiding in the Annex of a building at Prinsengracht 263. SS Lieutenant Julius Dettmann takes the call and then orders SD officer Karl Silberbauer to go to that address.
Silberbauer’s statements varied as to the number of Jews he was told would be found. In his initial statement3 to the Dutch authorities and to the Dutch journalist Jules Huf,4 he merely said, “Jews,” not citing a specific number. In his second statement, to Austrian authorities, he said, “six to eight Jews” and then, in his final interview, “eight Jews.”5
Dettmann contacts the desk officer, Sergeant Abraham Kaper, assigned to IV B4, to send Dutch detectives from the Amsterdam SD to the address.
10:30 a.m.: Otto is in Peter’s room, giving him English lessons.6
10:30–10:55 a.m.: The Dutch SD raid team pulls up in front of Prinsengracht 263 in a German Army car with Silberbauer. In another version Silberbauer arrives separately by bicycle. The warehouse doors are wide open, and the raid team enters. Willem van Maaren and Lammert Hartog, who are standing inside, see the car pull up. A Dutch plainclothes detective enters and speaks to Van Maaren.7 One Dutch SD man stays in the warehouse, while the remainder go up the steps to the office area.8
10:30–11:00 a.m.: Miep and Bep are at their desks in the office. Kugler is in his office, and Kleiman may not have been at his desk but is in the office area with Miep and Bep. According to Miep, she looks up and a fat man (probably one of the detectives) sticks his head around the door frame and in Dutch shouts at Kleiman, Bep, and her, “Quiet. Stay in your seats.”9 In a 1974 statement she says a tall, slender man also threatened them with a firearm.10 He then walks toward the back office, where Kugler is working.11 Kleiman says that the first thing he saw was the fat man’s head.12
Kugler hears footsteps and sees shadows pass behind the glass in his office door. He opens the door to see SD officer Karl Silberbauer.13 They go into Kugler’s office, where he is questioned. Kugler claims that there is one German SD (Silberbauer) and three plainclothes Dutch detectives in the raid team.14
Bep and Kleiman maintain that they heard the fat man and one other in Kugler’s office. The fat man asks him in German, “Where are the Jews?”15 The fat man then comes into their office and plants himself there. Bep will later confirm that there were (at a minimum) three Dutch detectives at the arrest.