You can find the original review here
I have been trying to figure out why the book The Betrayal
of Anne Frank angers me. I picked it
up knowing that the conclusion most likely would not be entirely or even mostly
provable – I just didn’t realize how badly.
I realized this morning that it is most likely the treatment of an
section about the granddaughter, a woman whose life is affected and effected by
this book. Additionally, part of it is that
no one seems to be pointing out or raising the questions that the chapter entitled
“The Granddaughter” should be raising.
This chapter really, really bugs. In part because it should be drawing more criticism
from reviewers, and more importantly, because of how the granddaughter is used
and treated. Let’s break down the
chapter and other issues.
The granddaughter
of the suspect of the cold case team is introduced in Chapter 40 The Granddaughter. The reader is told that Bayens tracked down
the family who hid the notary’s youngest daughter. The grandson of the people who hid the
daughter offers to introduced him to the daughter. It is noted that to protect the privacy of
the granddaughter that the name of both the grandson and his family have been
omitted and the name of the granddaughter is a pseudonym of Esther Kizio.
When Bayens
arrives to her residence, she is described as a woman in her fifties. It is noted that she is cooperative and that
she was born after the death of her grandfather (who died in October 1950). It is related that at age nine or ten, Kizio
was told about her mother’s experiences during the war (256). The story is largely backed up by
documentation, though it is interesting that the name of the family Kizio’s
grandmother was sheltered by is stated.
We are then told that “after her grandmother died in 1968, Esther had
the task of going through their Amsterdam home” (258-259).
The
thing is the age math gets a bit strange.
According to the citations interviews with Kizio were done in February of
2018 and February of 2019 (there are a total of three interviews cited, whether
this counts as all of the “several interviews” [256] is unclear). If Kizio is in her fifties in 2018 and was
born after the death of her grandfather, she would have been born at the earliest
in 1958/1959. This would made her 9-10 at
the death of her grandmother in 1968. There
are possible explanations. (1)Kizio
helped her mother and aunts clean out the house, (2) she cleaned out the house
after 1968 when other members of the family died or moved, or (3) for some
reason the phrase “a woman in her fifties” (256) is at best misworded or at
worst a lie.
If the
age is deliberately changed to protect Kizio why not note this, or even why not
simply use the phrase “older woman” which is vague? At the earliest, Kizio would have been born
in 1950, making her 68 in 2018.
If Kizio
helped or cleaned out the house at a later date why not simply state it that
way? The phrasing can be seen as
implying that Kizio did it herself.
It could
also be a translation issue either in terms of the notes themselves, or the
actual interview.
Later in
the same chapter, Kizio is shown the copy of the note that accuses her father
of betraying the Franks. Sullivan reports
her reaction using both quotes and paraphrasing. The quotation materially is “What would
motivate someone to send such a note?”, referring to the copy of the note about
her father. The second quote occurs
after a paragraph where she relates that the family has no story about her grandfather
betraying any one though she had received “verbally abusive anonymous phones
calls about the Jewish Council well after her grandfather’s death” (259). It would have to be well after. The second quote is “Why would someone betray others like this?”.
(259). It is followed by what seems to
be paraphrase:
Her grandfather must have been forced to
cooperate with the Germans, but she could not imagine him betraying Otto
Frank. Reading the note carefully , she
realized that it referred to lists, not specific people. Yes, she could imagine this. If indeed her grandfather gave up the
Prinsengracht 263 address, it was probably just an address on an impersonal
list; he didn’t know wo was living there.
If in fact he had done it, she said finally, she knew it could have been
for only one reason: because he was forced, because had to save his family’s
lives(259).
While the paragraph does use the word “if” note how it is
framed. The paraphrase implies that she
accepts the Cold Case Team’s thesis/claim.
This set up with the quote that precedes the paragraph, though Kizio’s
wondering is not reported verbatim, an interesting choice.
The
problem is not simply one of style. If a
reader can not trust the writer or team to present the information in this
chapter accurately or consisting, then can we believe or trust anything else
that they say?
Later in
the book, where the idea of lists of hiding places and hidden people being in
the possession of the Jewish council is discussed, Sullivan states that Kizio, “
when asked, said that her grandparents never spoke of hiding” (270). An interesting statement considering that Kizio
would not have a memory of her grandfather speaking about anything. The statement is not a quote, so one wonders
what Kizio originally said.
These
are small things, but the Team is leveling a charge against the woman’s
grandfather, a charge they had to know was going to be reported nationally and
internationally. They had to have a knowledge
of the impact that such an accusation would have in the Netherlands. The fact that the passages concerning her are
so slip shod in this book is disturbing because it is either poor written in
terms of presentation of facts or something else. Either way, leaving aside the legitimate issues
historians are raising about this book, the parts concerning the granddaughter
should give rise to questions.
interview with the team leader
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