Anne Frank Unmasked?

Last month, a Japanese author published a book which claims the famous diary of Anne Frank is a fake. Many people have made that claim over the years, including in writing. They are not all anti-Semites, but they are all wrong.

Ikuo Suzuki’s book has a commentary by Karl Haemers. Who is Ikuo Suzuki? There is at least one Japanese academic of that name; he is a scientist based at the University of Tokyo, but this sort of critique isn’t his field.

Surprisingly, the book has turned up on Amazon where it has been reviewed favourably. As with much similar criticism, the author points out inconsistencies in the text, but these do not refute its authorship. Having edited the memoirs of a very old woman, I can vouch for that. People make mistakes, there can be errors in translation and so on.

Before tackling the question of errors in the book, let us consider one author who has told provable lies about Anne Frank. Gena Turgel, who died in 2018, published her ghost-written autobiography in 1987. During the Second World War she was interned by the Nazis, including in the notorious Belsen concentration camp. In her book, Mrs Turgel claims to have been in the same barrack as Anne Frank, which may be true, but how would she know? She writes:

“She was already at Belsen when I arrived and lay a few bunks away from me, dying from typhus. I can remember so clearly my mother telling me about this Dutch girl in the barrack who had apparently written a diary. Other people were talking about it, too, and whispering and shushing because they knew she was dying. She had had to leave the diary behind in Holland.”

Is this claim even remotely credible? In later life, Mrs Turgel embellished this story further and claimed to have actually nursed Anne Frank. Her maiden name was Goldfinger; she married a soldier in the camp, a British Jew named Norman Turgel. Her book claims she was known as the Bride of Belsen. In fact, she was only one of many such brides and appears to have invented that title herself. Having said that, while many of the liaisons between female prisoners and their liberators were sordid, theirs was not, and lasted a lifetime.

In spite of her proven lies, no one had the courage to expose Mrs Turgel, probably because as a female concentration camp survivor she was way ahead in the oppression olympics.

That aside, what is the truth about Anne Frank’s famous diary? Like the Hunter Biden laptop from Hell, it is a story both stranger than fiction and irrefutably documented.

The Frank family were hiding out in an Amsterdam house because Anne’s elder sister had ignored a conscription notice for a labour camp. They remained there for two years before they were discovered or betrayed. The diary was found by Righteous Gentile Miep Gies who gave it to Anne’s father.

Suspicion was cast on the authenticity of the diary for many reasons, not the least because as stated the story is rather far fetched. Anne was incredibly precocious, but highly intelligent or even genius 13 year olds are by no means unknown. Mozart composed his first symphony when he was 9. If you want to see what a modern child prodigy looks like, check out this 9 year old. Compared with those two, Anne’s literary talents were nothing special. 

The official Anne Frank Museum website has a lengthy page devoted to attacks on the authenticity of the diary which explains in detail how and why skepticism arose – Otto Frank’s dispute with Meyer Levin; the ballpoint pen claim; variations due to translation… It isn’t necessary to read bad intentions into everyone who doesn’t believe this extraordinary tale. For example, the late Robert Faurisson was no anti-Semite, he was simply wrong. 

Rather than critique the style of the book and the claims made by its guardians, the skeptic should first and foremost consult the critical edition which was published by the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation in 1989. A copy of this was uploaded to the Internet Archive last year. It is one thing to argue with memory or motives, it is quite another to argue with forensics.

If there is one lesson to be learned from this story it is that anything with a political or racial angle should be investigated thoroughly, impartially, and with an open mind. Any particular story may be entirely true, entirely false, or embellished, either with malice aforethought, by accident, or by idiots. It remains to be seen if Ikuo Suzuki and his publisher are motivated by malice, but they have clearly not done their due diligence, which in the cyberage is unforgivable.

An amusing postscript to this affair is Anne Frank of Sarajevo. Zlata Filipovic was so styled after she wrote a diary of her life under siege during the Bosnian War. She was about the same age as Anne, and not as unfortunate in that she survived. While Anne’s diary has been attacked as a fake, Zlata’s has been denounced as exploitative.