We’ve all heard about the Holocaust. To hear the Jewish people tell the tale, it was all about Jews, Jews, Jews. Only Jews were arrested. Only Jews were forced into concentration camps. Only Jews died. Yeah, to hear them tell it. In reality, of course, people from all walks of life died in what people call “The Holocaust,” when in reality, it was merely war. In war, people die and in war, people become prisoners.
No one’s exempt, not even the Jews. I know that concept blows their minds, but it’s true, isn’t it? Now, of course when we look up the literal definition of a “holocaust” in the dictionary, it’s verbally correct to refer to what happened as such, but the reality is, again, it was merely a war.
There are a lot of tragic tales out there, and one of the saddest stories, at least according to some people, is the tale of Holocaust poster child Anne Frank (seen to the left in 1941) and her family, all of whom sought shelter in an annex and they managed to hide there successfully for quite some time. But then the authorities came knocking and took them all away. Everyone would die, including Anne and her sister, but excluding her father, Otto.
Otto Frank, of course, came back from the war and found her diary. He decided to, like a Jewish person would, capitalize on his daughter’s misery. As a result, students for generations have been subjected to her whining, crying and misery. Students have been taught that Anne was somehow special, something that she of course was absolutely not.
But how did they find her? They were hiding, right? They were careful to not be heard when people were in the building, Amsterdam’s Prinsengracht 263, working during the day, right? Yes, they were, but there was something that they weren’t keeping in mind: someone wanted to expose them, and they did so!
The story goes that the Franks were betrayed. The question is: who turned them in? If I’d been alive back then, it would have been me, but I digress. There have been numerous theories over the years and it doesn’t seem as if it’s been proven once and for all who did the deed and why they did it.
Back in 2022, the BBC screamed at the top of its lungs that the one who betrayed people and made their deaths possible was supposedly none other than one Arnold van den Bergh, a prominent Jew, dropped a dime in order to save his own family.
When you put it in that perspective, it is easy to see that there was justification for what was done, even if the Franks died because of that so-called “betrayal.”
Van den Bergh was a part of an organization that forced Nazi policies upon Jews in the Amsterdam area. That group was dissolved and its members were sent to concentration camps. That is, of course, with the exception of Van den Bergh and when they finally caught up to him, he quickly realized that he had an easy ticket out of damnation: give up the Franks. He did exactly that, or at least that’s how the story goes. Not everyone’s buying it.
A lot of people have been accused of sending the Franks to their demise, but there are still a lot of doubts. Some say it may have been Willem van Maaren, an employee of the company that Otto Frank ran, a company housed in the building where the Frank bunch cowered.
Supposedly, Frank found proof that Maaren was the one, but even so, he doesn’t seem to have been proven the one beyond a reasonable doubt.
There are numerous suspects, and each suspect warrants a separate article. The point of this article isn’t to do do what’s already been done. My point here is to say that Anne Frank was not a tragic figure. All she was was a prisoner of war. It’s as simple as that, folks.
As I alluded to earlier, I would absolutely have been the one to expose the Franks had I been alive back then and had I been the one in that building. I of course would have sought a reward, but given how arrogant I feel that the Franks were, I would have probably “betrayed” them free of charge, just for the amusement of it all!
I likely would have pointed and laughed as I watched them being marched out of that building and on their way to their final punishment. Am I being cruel? I don’t think so. I’m just a fan of people seeing people get what they deserve when they think that they’re better than everyone else.
So, no, I don’t feel sorry for Anne or for the rest of her group. Surely they knew that, one way or another, they would be caught. What should have happened is that they should have simply given themselves up and saved everyone a lot of trouble.
Will we one day know for absolute certain who did this? Maybe, maybe not, but as far as I’m concerned, justice was served. The Franks knew better than to be hiding instead of accepting their well-justified punishment. They thought that they were going to get one over and instead, they got the ultimate punishment.
I’m just like you: I don’t know who caused the Franks to be found and sent to their deaths. What I do know is that whomever did it is my personal hero and he or she did society a huge favor.
Maybe, just maybe, if they’d given themselves up, they would have survived the camps and would have returned home. But no, they thought that they were better than everyone else, and look where that got them.