The change of warehouse manager was probably the most dangerous threat to the Annex residents since they’d gone into hiding, although there were many other things for the helpers to worry about: obtaining food stamps from the resistance (according to Miep, Jan had to take everyone’s identity cards to the resistance organization to prove that he was feeding eight people); finding extra money to buy food; and, as rationing increased, finding food at all.
To make matters worse, businesses all over Amsterdam were being robbed. There were at least three break-in attempts at Prinsengracht 263 between 1943 and 1944. On July 16, 1943, as was his custom, Peter went down to the warehouse before the employees arrived, only to discover that the front doors were open. Thieves had forced both the warehouse and the street doors with a crowbar. Ironically, everyone in the Annex had slept through it all. The robbers had reached the second floor and stolen a small amount of money, blank checks, and, most depressing, food coupons amounting to the Annex’s entire allotment of sugar.
On March 1, 1944, Peter again found the front door leading to the offices wide open and discovered that Mr. Kugler’s new briefcase and a projector were missing from his office. What was worrisome was that there was no sign of a break-in. The burglar seemed to have had a duplicate key, which meant it must have been one of the warehouse employees. Who could it be?
The most harrowing incident was a break-in a month later, on April 9, four short months before the Annex was raided and its residents arrested.4 There had been noises from the warehouse after work hours, and Peter, his father, Fritz, and Otto had headed downstairs. Peter noted that a large panel of the warehouse door was missing. The four entered the warehouse and spied the burglars. Van Pels yelled, “Police!” and the burglars fled. But as the men tried to cover the hole in the door, a swift kick from the outside sent the piece of wood flying. They were shocked at the boldness of the burglars. They tried again, and once more the replacement panel was kicked free. Then a man and a woman shone a flashlight through the hole.
The Annex residents raced upstairs. A little later, they heard a rattling at the bookcase. In her diary Anne wrote that she could not find words to describe the terror of that moment. They heard the footsteps receding, and then everything went quiet. The eight retreated to the top floor, where they spent a sleepless night, waiting for the Gestapo.
The next day, Jan Gies learned what had happened. Martin Sleegers, the local night watchman, who patrolled the area on his bicycle with his dogs, had seen the hole in the door and alerted the police. Sleegers and a policeman named Cornelis den Boef, an active member of the NSB, had searched the entire building, including the alcove containing the entrance to the Annex. It was they who had rattled the bookcase.5
As he was returning to the Annex later that day, Jan ran into the greengrocer Hendrik van Hoeve, who delivered their vegetables, and told him there had been a break-in. Van Hoeve replied that he knew; he and his wife had been walking past the building and had noticed the hole in the door. He’d put his flashlight through the hole and believed he’d startled the burglars, who had run off. He said he’d thought about calling the police but decided against it. He added that he had his own suspicions about what was going on in the Annex and didn’t want to create trouble.6 Van Hoeve was as good as telling Jan that he knew about the people in hiding. Kleiman’s brother Willy soon came to repair the door.
At the beginning of 1944, a man named Lammert Hartog had been hired as an assistant to the new warehouse manager, Van Maaren. He’d been recommended by Petrus Genot, who worked with Kleiman’s brother in his extermination business. Hartog’s wife, Lena, who occasionally cleaned the Opekta offices, had also interceded to get her husband the job.
At the end of June, Petrus Genot approached Kleiman’s brother and warned him that Hartog’s wife had casually asked his wife if it was true that Jews were hiding at Prinsengracht 263. Anna Genot had been aghast. How could Lena be spreading such gossip in these dangerous times? Anna told her to be very careful with such talk. But Lena mentioned the same thing to Bep, who also told her that she shouldn’t be so casual with that kind of information.7
Terrified, Bep then spoke to Kugler and Kleiman. What should they do? If Hartog, his wife, Lena, and maybe even Van Maaren all suspected that there were Jews in the Annex, somehow the information would leak out. Should they tell Otto? Was it time to try to move the eight to other premises? Maybe Anne and Margot could stay together, but how could they find seven hiding places? Would the Franks even agree to be separated? It was summer. People would be outdoors later. Could eight people be smuggled out of the building without being noticed? In the end they did nothing. It would be one of the painful memories they would have to fold into their experience—the feeling of guilt for withholding the warning from Otto. The Annex was raided two months later. If the helpers had moved everyone, would Otto Frank’s family, the Van Pelses, and Fritz Pfeffer have been saved?
12
Anatomy of a Raid
Kleiman remembered the morning of Friday, August 4, 1944, as warm and bright:
The sun was shining; we were working in the big office. . . . in the warehouse below us the spice mills were rumbling. When the sun was shining the trees along the canal and the water itself would often cast flecks of light on the ceiling and walls of the office, ripples of light that flickered and danced. It was an odd effect, but we knew then that it was fair outside.1
But it was on that day that the unthinkable happened. An IV B4 unit consisting of a German SD officer and at least three Dutch policemen raided Prinsengracht 263. They’d been informed that Jews were hiding there.
Karl Silberbauer, Otto, the four helpers, and the two warehouse workers all provided slightly different accounts of the raid. Not surprisingly, the accounts changed over the years, which is to be expected. Memory is fluid and inevitably alters over time. Official statements about the Annex raid were gathered from four to nineteen years after the event.
As part of the Arrest Tracking Project, Vince and the Cold Case Team put together a precise timeline of the raid based on witness statements, police reports, press interviews, and private correspondence:
9:00 a.m.: The Opekta/Gies & Co. office staff (Miep, Bep, Kugler, and Kleiman) arrive and start their day.
9:10 a.m.: Miep goes to the Annex and obtains the daily shopping list.2
10:00 a.m.: A call comes in to the IV B4 “Jew-hunting unit” located at the SD office, Euterpestraat 99, Amsterdam. The report is that there are Jews hiding in the Annex of a building at Prinsengracht 263. SS Lieutenant Julius Dettmann takes the call and then orders SD officer Karl Silberbauer to go to that address.
Silberbauer’s statements varied as to the number of Jews he was told would be found. In his initial statement3 to the Dutch authorities and to the Dutch journalist Jules Huf,4 he merely said, “Jews,” not citing a specific number. In his second statement, to Austrian authorities, he said, “six to eight Jews” and then, in his final interview, “eight Jews.”5
Dettmann contacts the desk officer, Sergeant Abraham Kaper, assigned to IV B4, to send Dutch detectives from the Amsterdam SD to the address.
10:30 a.m.: Otto is in Peter’s room, giving him English lessons.6