Letter to HarperCollins - The Betrayal of Anne Frank.pdf

Office address Amstel 1 1011 PN Amsterdam Postal address Postbus 202 1000 AE Amsterdam The Netherlands Phone +31 20 624 1111 amsterdam.nl/en Return address: Postbus 202, 1000 AE Amsterdam

Brian Murray President and Chief Executive Officer, HarperCollins Publishers

Dealt with by

11 July 2023 Digitalisation, Innovation & Information (bestuurszaken.dii@amsterdam.nl)

Subject

The Betrayal of Anne Frank

Date

Dear Mr Murray, Rosemary Sullivan’s book The Betrayal of Anne Frank is based on a cold-case project by Proditione Media that began in 2017. Partly by using innovative technology, the project was to investigate who could have betrayed Anne Frank. In 2017, the City of Amsterdam was approached by Proditione Media with a request to contribute to the investigation. The City of Amsterdam made a one-off financial contribution to the project. The aim of this contribution was to enable the sharing of the project’s research data with the Amsterdam City Archives, the National Archives and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, to make the data public where possible and to make the approach, methodology and software available to anyone wanting to use it for future research (e.g. universities, research institutions and students). The City of Amsterdam was in no way involved in the research, the methodology or the outcome of the study. At the time, the renowned Jewish Cultural Quarter in Amsterdam supported the project. The Anne Frank House made its archives available for the study. Unfortunately, it has since transpired that both the research and the book contain many historical errors, which has been confirmed by several scholars.

I do not need to explain to you how painful World War II and the Holocaust are for Jewish and many other residents of Amsterdam and their relatives and descendants. Research into the irreparable suffering and injustice inflicted on the Jewish population in World War II should be carried out with the utmost care. Since 2022, HarperCollins has been offering this book for sale in many countries and in January this year you also launched a paperback version. Changes have been made to it but, according to authoritative scholars, the evidence and line of argument are still unsound.

City of Amsterdam

Date 11 July 2023 Page 2 of 2

In the book, the City of Amsterdam is thanked for its contribution. However, the City of Amsterdam did not actively contribute to the book in any way and has since emphatically distanced itself from it. We therefore urge you to remove the City of Amsterdam’s name from this work. Yours faithfully, On behalf of the College of Mayor and Alderpersons,

Alexander Scholtes Deputy Mayor for IT and Digital City