Documentary maker Thijs Bayens came in 2017 on the idea to study one of the most famous mysteries of World War II with modern police methods and investigative tools. A team of 23 people For this purpose, it collected old and new interviews, diaries, address lists and war files from archives worldwide to test existing and new hypotheses.
Artificial intelligence was used, among other things, to dig through the 66 gigabytes of information. For example, the computer was used to analyze connections between raids on other hiding places and to map out the residents of the Secret Annex.
The team looked again at old suspicions, from the very first suspect Willem van Maaren to suggestions from later authors, such as collaborator Tonny Ahlers or the Jewish traitor Ans van Dijk. Also the theory that the discovery of the Secret Annex would have been a coincidence was tested. “All in all, we have inventoried about thirty theories,” says journalist Pieter van Twisk, one of the Dutch research leaders. “We can say that 27, 28 of them have been very unlikely to impossible.”
Anonymous tip
Central to the theory that remained is an anonymous note that was delivered to Otto Frank shortly after the war. Although the trail to the original was deadlocked, the team managed to find a copy of it made by Otto Frank in a police officer’s family archives.
“Your hiding place in Amsterdam was informed at the time to the Jewish emigration in Amsterdam, Euterpestraat, by A. van den Bergh, at the time living near Vondelpark, O. Nassaulaan. At the JA there was a whole list of addresses he passed on.” Otto only revealed the existence of that note when the betrayal was investigated for the second time in 1964.
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