If, like me, you live in an area where you can't watch cbs.news.com, you can see it on YouTube
https://youtu.be/1pO_nERBqKo


--
Nachum Aronson

Nothing is new!
We the jews known for betraying our brothers...
From my personal knowledge KAPU - were jews that sold to the nazis their neighbours... Getho Stanislawow where dozens of my family were murdered.

--
boris baruch shapira cwiren
Philadelphia usa
Tel aviv israel
boris.shapira@...

There is also a new book out recounting the same story that was just reviewed in the New York Times. I wouldn't be surprised if that's how 60 Minutes picked up on it. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/17/books/review-betrayal-anne-frank-investigation-rosemary-sullivan.html?searchResultPosition=1


Bruce Drake
Silver Spring MD

This whole subject is quite difficult to confront. Of the millions of Jews under the Nazis, there were many good people and some not so. Many were forced to make horrible decisions that might have endangered others even in their own family (remember Sophie's Choice). However, none deserved to be killed or sent to the camps. 

Irv Salit
Toronto, ON
irvsalit@...

It's very difficult for one, over 75 years after the event, to judge actions taken in desperation under the conditions of those times. On the other hand, the suspected betrayer knew that the Franks would be sent to the camps and likely murdered. Under legal standards of today, if there were sufficient evidence to prove he was indeed the betrayer, he would likely face charges of murder, and it's an interesting question whether he could claim self-defense.
It's also interesting that Otto Frank never revealed the name that was sent to him anonymously. We can only speculate as to why.
Incidentally, as noted by the lead investigator, the accumulated evedence against the prime suspect probably doesn't meet the high standard of proof needed for a criminal conviction.
A final point: I found the 60 Minutes broadcast to be very superficial. Maybe the book is less so.
Stephen Katz

The search results were not dispositive of the question. It was narrowed down but not proven. The person they fingered for disclosing the name was financially well off and had connections. A program like this should not be viewed as speaking for the dead. Some people are strong. Others are weak. We should not judge people for doing something to stay alive.  We have no idea how we would react in their shoes.

In the camps, some women slept with Nazis to stay alive. Just that act alone was enough for other Jewish women to treat these women like dirt. It is very easy to judge in a 2 dimensional world. Real life is much more complex. How far would you go to save yourself or a loved one?

Shelley Mitchell, NYC 

The timing of this episode, airing the day after Colleyville, has
triggered my ever-present paranoia. Will the takeaway for the masses be
"Jews are their own worst enemies -- betraying and killing each other --
who cares about them?" (It didn't help that on Saturday, I heard early
speculation that the hostage-taker might be a disgruntled congregant.)

Interesting segment, but one that may stoke rising anti-Semitism.
--

 

A New York Times article casts great doubt on these findings

www.nytimes.com/2022/01/18/books/anne-frank-betrayal-arnold-van-den-bergh.html

Dara Horn points out that this is yet another example of how non-Jews can ignore antisemitism by pointing out that Jews turn against Jews. 60 Minutes should be ashamed of themselves for not properly vetting the story.

Aria Schifman

This TV segment has generated a lot of uninformed comment on what happened in Holland during the Holocaust. I was even surprised to hear the Dutch psychologist interviewed in the 60 Minutes segment describing the betrayers as psychopaths. Clearly he didn't know his country's history. Some may have been psychopaths, but most were your average citizens. Denunciation became a national pastime in Holland during the war. It wasn't just Jews and Antifascists who were at risk of being denounced, but everyone else being denounced by their neighbors, relatives and even their spouses. Denunciation was so rampant, that it even took the Germans by surprise, they had seen nothing like this in Germany or any other country they had occupied.

For further information I would recommend the following book published by Yad Vashem in 2017, "Denunciation and Rescue - Dutch Society and the Holocaust" by Pinchas Bar-Efrat.   
--
Stephen Schmideg
Melbourne, Australia
stephen@...

And in the meantime the name of a possibly innocent man, actually someone about whom it is proven that he did loads of good things for the Jewish Community, has been besmirched. His poor grandchildren.
--
Nachum Aronson

Historians bash ‘rubbish’ findings of investigation into Anne Frank betrayal |
Headline in web newspaper TIMES OF ISRAEL

Big conclusions demand big proof,” historian Johannes Houwink ten Cate told The Times of Israel. “I cannot believe that a member of the Jewish Council traded addresses for freedom. After the Council was abolished, its members were sent to camps, if they did not go into hiding.”

As professor emeritus of Holocaust studies at the University of Amsterdam, Houwink ten Cate spent decades researching the city under German occupation. According to the scholar, Van den Bergh was in hiding throughout most of 1944, including during the raid on the secret annex in early August.

“Van den Bergh’s special status [of being protected as a council member and otherwise] had been withdrawn by the Nazis,” said Houwink ten Cate. “If he had betrayed the Frank family, he had to come out into the open, and that exactly was what he was trying to prevent.”

I am not planning to read the book, but I wonder if it goes into more
detail about the process. As shown in the segment, the approach was
almost cavalier, with possible suspects dismissed because "he didn't say
anything anti-Semitic" or "there's no evidence that Nazis living just a
few feet away spotted the family in their hiding place."

As pointed out in the articles, there is no reason to believe a list of
Jewish addresses existed. If I'm going into hiding, I'm going to
minimize the number of people who know, and keep it to a trusted and
trustworthy few. The Franks weren't signing up for Meals on Wheels.

I'm sure this six-year undertaking was expensive, and I understand the
financial need for a dramatic reveal vs, say, the mail carrier ratted
them out. But I agree that it's pretty reprehensible to identify a
fellow Jew on flimsy circumstantial "well, he might have a way to turn
them in" evidence when he has no one to speak on his behalf 80 years
later.  Do we know if other Jewish hiding places were similarly exposed?
During the segment, there was a brief indication that the Nazis were
familiar with the signs of a hiding place: the
cabinets/bookcases/pantries with well-worn grooves on the floor.
--

 

At 16:47 20/01/2022, Geoffrey Isaac Collins wrote:

Historians bash 'rubbish' findings of investigation into Anne Frank
betrayal |
Headline in web newspaper TIMES OF ISRAEL

Big conclusions demand big proof," historian Johannes Houwink ten
Cate told The Times of Israel. "I cannot believe that a member of
the Jewish Council traded addresses for freedom. After the Council
was abolished, its members were sent to camps, if they did not go into hiding."

As professor emeritus of Holocaust studies at the University of
Amsterdam, Houwink ten Cate spent decades researching the city under
German occupation. According to the scholar, Van den Bergh was in
hiding throughout most of 1944, including during the raid on the
secret annex in early August.

"Van den Bergh's special status [of being protected as a council
member and otherwise] had been withdrawn by the Nazis," said Houwink
ten Cate. "If he had betrayed the Frank family, he had to come out
into the open, and that exactly was what he was trying to prevent."

From
GEOFFREY ISAAC COLLINS
HAIFA
geoffic at gmail.com

Why does it have to have been someone who betrayed them? Why
conspiracy theories?

The group of people hiding in the attic had to heat to survive. Food
was scarce and rationed. It is quite enough for the SS or someone
else to have noticed that more food was going into the house that
"appropriate" for the number of people known to be living at that
address. It is equally possible that a sound from the attic was
heard by someone It was August 4th 1944 that they were
discovered. A pity! Had it been in deep winter I would have come
up with a conspiracy theory: The body heat of such a group of
people in the cramp attic was sufficient to lessen the frost on the roof tiles.

All we can do is to say - or think - a theoretical Kaddish for them,
and to remember them.

David Lewin
London

I agree with Ms Goldberg.
To point our a fellow Jew who is not here to defend himself is reprehensible.
In my opinion, this is a money grabbing episode to sell books.
To accuse or even suggest a person’s guilt after he has long died is a cowardly act.
Larry Gaum
Toronto

It is also a BOOK!

For those who read, the information contained in more than 350 pages will be equal to, or even better than, the 60 minutes or you tube abridged version.

Sandy Malek
Los Angeles, California

And I disagree with Andrew Sverdlove. You are jumping to wildly broad unsubstantiated conclusions. Like the episode, you, like others, try to put Jews in a box. Think of the subject as merely an attempt to answer a question which cannot be answered.  Hindsight is not only 20:20 but it attempts in vain to see the past the same way a person in the past saw it. 

The enterprise and the book are of no value to anyone. Hopefully the masses will figure that out and avoid the book. In the meantime a family’s name has been besmirched based on a guess. 

Shelley Mitchell NYC