The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation(42)
That span of time was, in itself, interesting: the couple lived at Westermarkt 18 from the beginning of the German invasion; they moved out exactly at the point when it was clear that the Germans had lost the war and collaborators were fleeing Amsterdam. A search of Uncle Niek’s CABR file confirmed that he was indeed an NSB collaborator, but the Cold Case Team had not expected to find that Jansje’s sweet auntie was a card-carrying member of the NSB, too—and that she rented rooms to young NSB men. Perhaps instead of being a helper of the people in the Annex, she had something to do with their betrayal.
Though it was unlikely that a card-carrying member of the NSB would have fed Jews in hiding, Vince and Monique allowed for the possibility that the nanny was secretly against the Germans and belonged to the NSB only to accommodate her husband. But did she live close enough to deliver food without being seen?
Unfortunately, the building at Westermarkt 18 had been torn down and replaced by updated apartments. Switching to period photos from the war revealed that the rear of Westermarkt 18 actually faced the side of the Annex and did not provide a view of the Annex’s rear-facing windows, as Jansje remembered. Also, the building was far enough away that her theory of her nanny lowering food to the hiders would have required the helpers to emerge from the Annex through the back of the warehouse and walk several dozen meters to retrieve it. Surely such activity would have been too risky for all concerned. Furthermore, if it did happen the way Jansje imagined it, there would have been some documentation of such assistance, either in Anne’s diary or in the helpers’ statements. As far as the nanny possessing a rope on a pulley and a basket, many multistory canal homes had narrow hallways and steep, twisting stairs, so it was a very common delivery method in Amsterdam at the time.
Uncle Niek’s CABR file contained evidence of just how impassioned an NSB member he really was. Witnesses described him as sometimes walking around in a Landwacht* uniform with two pistols and flying the NSB flag from his home on holidays. Evidently, he held on to his radical beliefs right to the very end of the war, since there were several statements from people who had witnessed him giving a pro-German speech on the street the day before liberation. The same witnesses against Uncle Niek claimed that his wife, the good nanny, had assisted him with the speech. Memories may have edited the date somewhat, since the couple had reportedly moved from the street in February, but the anecdote indicates just how much the locals loathed Uncle Niek.
But no matter how vehement a Nazi sympathizer Uncle Niek might have been, the team could find no evidence that anyone ever accused him of turning someone in. After the war he was convicted of having been an NSB block leader and writing pro-Nazi propaganda songs that were sold to a popular broadcaster. For his collaborationist actions he received a sentence of twenty-two months in prison.2
In the end, a snippet of information found deep within his social file proved crucial to the team’s conclusion that Uncle Nick was not the betrayer: during 1944, he was not in Amsterdam but in the distant eastern city of Arnhem. He may have had motivation, due to his radical NSB affiliation, but he did not have opportunity. Nor could the team find any evidence that, despite having lived in close proximity to the Annex, he possessed knowledge that the Annex was occupied.
Normally that scenario would have been put to rest, but the team found the identity cards of Jansje’s parents at the Amsterdam City Archive and discovered that they lost their Dutch nationality after the war. Merely being an NSB member did not usually result in losing one’s nationality; it took more than just misguided ideology to make that happen. The team located a CABR file for Jansje’s father indicating that he was a member of the National Socialist Motor Corps (Nationalsozialistische Kraftfahrkorps; NSKK) and worked in Germany from 1942 to 1944. A paramilitary group, the NSKK provided mechanics and drivers for the various branches of the German military. It was probably his membership in the NSKK that lost him his Dutch citizenship. His collaboration activities may also explain how the family was able to possess a residential phone late into the war. What was more surprising was the discovery that Jansje’s mother was also a member of the NSB. Her name was on the list that Yad Vashem had provided Vince early on in the investigation. She, too, lost her citizenship, which shocked Jansje; she’d had no idea how involved the family had been with the Nazis.
The team then discovered that Jansje’s mother had been arrested on August 3, 1944, at 10:10 p.m., a mere twelve hours before the raid on Prinsengracht 263. That she was only fined and quickly released aroused the team’s suspicion, since quick release often meant that people had traded information for their freedom.3 Could Jansje’s mother have seen or heard something about Jews hiding in the Annex close to where the nanny lived and given the information to the police after her arrest?
It was an interesting hypothesis, but it didn’t hold up. The records show that the woman was arrested for violating curfew, which was at 8:00 p.m. However, it was still light out until 9:30, so there was likely nothing sinister about her walking around at that hour; she didn’t seem to pose any danger. Besides, that late in the war, when everyone knew that the Germans were in trouble, the average beat cop would probably not have bothered to get mixed up with the Dutch SD detectives of the dreaded Jew-hunting unit. When the war was over, everyone wanted to have been on the right side.
24
Another Theory
In 2018, a message came into the office from an older Dutch gentleman who declared that Vince and his team were wasting their time trying to solve the Annex arrest because he already knew what had happened. After a few emails, Pieter established telephone contact with Gerard Kremer, who, as a small child, grew up at Westermarkt 2, the same stately building that housed two floors of Wehrmacht offices, around the corner from the comic book store from whose attic Vince and Brendan observed the interior courtyard and the back of the Annex.