By Anthony Deutsch and Stephanie van den Berg

AMSTERDAM (Reuters – After six years of cold-case investigation, a new suspect has been identified in the case of Anne Frank’s treachery. He is the mysterious Nazi-hideaway location of Anne Frank.

Anne, seven others and other Jews were found by the Nazis in August 2004. They had been hiding for almost two years in an annex located above a Amsterdam canal warehouse. Anne, at the age of 15, was deported with seven other Jews.

The FBI’s retired agent Vincent Pankoke was joined by around 20 historians, criminologists, data experts, who identified Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish notary, as a major suspect in the discovery of the hideout.

Others experts stressed that evidence against him wasn’t conclusive.

Pieter van Twisk, an investigator from the team, said that the key piece of evidence was an unsigned letter to Anne’s dad Otto in an old investigation dossier. It specifically names Van den Bergh. He also claimed he passed the information on.

Van den Bergh, a member Amsterdam’s wartime Jewish Council, had been given access to Jewish refugee addresses and was said to have passed such lists on to Nazis for his safety.

Twisk stated that only four of the initial 32 names were left after the investigation, Van den Bergh being the main suspect.

Otto was the sole survivor from the war. Investigators have confirmed this.

Van Twisk suggested that Frank might not have spoken out because he couldn’t be certain it was true. He also said that he didn’t want any information that could fuel anti-Semitism to get out there and that Van den Bergh would not wish for his three daughters to feel guilty about something that their father did.

Van Twisk stated that Otto had been to Auschwitz. Van Twisk said that Otto knew the morality of people acting in hard situations.

Van den Bergh could remain in the Netherlands while other Jewish Council members were sent home in 1943. In 1950, he died.

Erik Somers from the Dutch NIOD institute of war, holocaust, and genocide studies praised their extensive research, but was skeptical of its final conclusions.

He also questioned Van den Bergh’s centrality to the anonymous note and stated that Van den Bergh had assumed certain things about Amsterdam Jewish institutions during wartime, which were not supported historical research.

Somers believes there were many reasons Van den Bergh wasn’t deported because “he was very influential”.

Miep Gies, one of the family’s helpers, kept Anne’s diary safe until Otto returned and first published it in 1947. Since then, it has been translated into 60 different languages and captured millions of people’s imaginations worldwide.

While the Anne Frank House Foundation did not participate in the cold-case investigation, they shared data from their archives to aid.

Ronald Leopold, Director of the Research Center, stated that his research “exposed important new information as well as a compelling hypothesis that warrants more research.”

A master database was created using modern research techniques. It included lists of Dutch collaborators and informants as well as historical documents, police records, previous research, and records from other countries.

A map was created to visualize a variety of situations and possible locations for suspects. This map is based on information about the hideaway, motivation, and chance.

Rosemary Sullivan of Canada will publish the results of this new research in a book called “The Betrayal Anne Frank”. It will be out on Tuesday.

CIDI is a Dutch Jewish Organization that combats antisemitism. The CIDI director told Reuters that she hoped her book would offer insight into Amsterdam’s Jewish community during wartime.

This would mean that the Jews were responsible. Hanna Luden, CIDI stated that the Nazis ultimately culpable.