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William Collins has remained tight-lipped on a recent book about Anne Frank after its Dutch publisher announced it would stop reprinting the title until there was more work done on its central claims.
Publishing house Ambo Anthos said in an internal email sent to authors in its stable, first revealed by Reuters, that it should have taken a more “critical stance” on The Betrayal of Anne Frank, and that it had delayed a further print run.
The book was written by the Canadian author Rosemary Sullivan with a team of investigators and is published by HarperCollins in English. Imprint William Collins published the book in the UK on 18th January. The book quickly made headlines around the world after it named a Jewish notary called Arnold van den Bergh as the main suspect behind the betrayal of the Frank family, which led to the Nazis finding the hiding place of the diarist.
Historians and researchers were quick to question the evidence behind the claim that as a member of the Jewish council in Amsterdam, an administrative body the German authorities forced Jews to establish, van den Bergh would probably have had access to the places in which Jewish people were hiding.
Pieter van Twisk, one of the investigators used in the book, was quoted by Dutch public broadcaster NOS as saying he was "perplexed" by the email and had been unaware of how Ambo Anthos felt about the book’s reception.
Anne Frank and seven other Jewish people were discovered on 4th August 1944 in their hiding place above a canal-side warehouse in the Jordaan area of Amsterdam. The group were deported and Anne Frank died in the Bergen Belsen camp, aged 15.
HarperCollins declined to comment.