Van Kooten quickly pulled a blank sheet of paper and a marker from a drawer. For just a moment he stared at the paper. Then he started to draw circles and lines. He spoke softly but firmly. The two men could sense that he knew the world he described intimately and that he was choosing his words carefully—very carefully.
The drawing became increasingly complex, and it was clear that the world they were entering was difficult to explain. The essence was this.
There are three versions of Anne Frank’s diary:
The original journal.
Anne’s rewriting of the diary in her last months before the raid on the Annex. (In a broadcast on Radio Oranje on March 28, 1944, the Dutch minister of education, art, and science advised people to preserve their diaries so that there would be a chronicle of what the nation had gone through and survived. Anne rewrote her diary with the ambition of having it published.)3
The rewritten diary with adjustments by (or under the supervision of) Otto Frank. This is the version that has been published all over the world.
There are two Anne Frank foundations, both founded by Otto Frank:
Anne Frank House (AFS)/Anne Frank Stichting (Foundation) in Amsterdam. This was established in 1957 by Otto Frank to save the house and Annex at Prinsengracht 263 from demolition. The main objectives of the foundation are the management of the Anne Frank House and the propagation of the life story and ideals of Anne Frank. The foundation develops exhibitions, educational programs, and publications based on Anne’s life. It also manages the Anne Frank collection and opens the “hiding place” to the public.
Anne Frank Fonds (AFF) in Basel, Switzerland. This was founded in 1963 by Otto Frank to distribute his daughter’s diary and manage the copyright of the Frank family.* The Anne Frank Fonds has an educational center in Frankfurt, supports many charities, and is active in the field of books, films, and plays.
Fair enough. But now things get more complicated. Version A of the diary is owned by the Dutch state. Version B used to be the property of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam but now belongs to the Anne Frank Fonds in Basel, and in any case the image rights, including images of the text, have always belonged to the Fonds. Version C is also the property of the Anne Frank Fonds.
The two organizations have gone through quite a few lawsuits disputing copyright ownership. Whatever you do with the one could therefore have an impact on the other. That was the essence of Van Kooten’s graphic.
In the very first phase of the project, Thijs was drinking tea with a friend and explaining his thoughts about the cold case investigation. The friend told him that on one of his visits to the luxurious hotel La Colombe d’Or in the south of France, he’d run into one of the board members of the Anne Frank Fonds (AFF). (The hotel is well known for its art by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, and many other famous artists, who left their works on the walls as payment in kind for their stays.) Thijs’s friend said that when they were ready, he would set up a telephone call between Thijs and the board member. Thijs waited until he was certain that the project was funded and ready to go forward. When they finally spoke, the AFF board member let Thijs know that he was not very receptive to the project but would nevertheless discuss it with the other board members. That led to an invitation to visit the AFF headquarters, and on Wednesday, September 28, 2018, Thijs, Pieter, and Vince took a one-hour flight to Basel.
The Fonds is located near the old center of Basel in a modern and very unobtrusive office building. The interior is luxurious but not lavish. The meeting took place in a small room with five members of the board of trustees present, including President John D. Goldsmith, Vice President Daniel Fürst, and Secretary Yves Kugelmann. The conversation was jovial and pleasant for an hour or more as sandwiches were passed around. Everyone introduced themselves briefly, and then Thijs, Pieter, and Vince spoke about their research ideas and motivation for taking on the project. Vince remembered that Goldsmith had seemed quite skeptical; he had asked why they had started an investigation and whether there was some new information to justify it.
Vince explained that the purpose of a cold case investigation was to review previously unearthed information in the hope of finding new clues. In this case, earlier investigations had been done with too narrow a focus. New techniques and technologies could bring fresh insights. After that, the board members seemed somewhat less skeptical. The atmosphere was so friendly and pleasant that Vince began to entertain the hope that the board members would pledge their cooperation. That optimism came to an abrupt end when Kugelmann asked if they already had a name for the project.
Thijs replied that the working title was “A Cold Case Diary: Anne Frank.” The room immediately became quiet. Kugelmann started to speak. He said that they really objected to that. Why misuse the name Anne Frank for the study? Did they not know that the name Anne Frank was protected and that the AFF owned the trademark rights? The Cold Case Team would not be allowed to use her name. And wasn’t it particularly unethical to make money on the back of the poor girl? After all, the betrayal was not about Anne alone, it was about all eight people hiding in the Annex—and it was also about 107,000 other Jews who’d been taken from the Netherlands and were not named Anne Frank. Why did the Netherlands claim Anne, anyway? She was first of all a German girl and a Jewish girl and not a Dutch girl! For that reason, they supported the Anne Frank House in Frankfurt. In fact, for them, it was simply incomprehensible that there was an Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.
Vince, Thijs, and Pieter were dumbfounded. Pieter in particular was outraged. The AFF was reproaching them for trying to make money from the name Anne Frank? The same AFF that has rights to one of the best selling and most profitable books of all time? Anne foremost a German girl? Wasn’t she stateless and more or less expelled from her country by a regime that deemed her an Untermensch? Did she not write in her diary that it was her greatest wish to become a Dutch national as well as a famous writer? Didn’t she write her diary in Dutch? If she had survived the war, she might have had second thoughts about becoming Dutch, but that was clearly her intention.
Kugelmann said he saw opportunities for support and collaboration, but only if the Cold Case Team did not use the name Anne Frank. It could even cooperate with a research group that was already financed by the AFF. Although the atmosphere had clearly cooled, everyone still behaved courteously. Thijs indicated that they had not anticipated that condition as the basis of future cooperation and they needed to think about it.
And then Kugelmann spoke the words Thijs, Vince, and Pieter would not soon forget. He said that the team would never be able to solve the case without the help of the Anne Frank Fonds, insinuating that the Fonds possessed something that was key to solving the mystery. If it did have something, it would likely be in its archives, but it was unclear what specific evidence Kugelmann meant. As the three men were leaving, Goldsmith pulled Vince aside and said, “You know that Otto lied to Wiesenthal about knowing the identity of Silberbauer. Why do you think he did this?” Vince replied that he didn’t know yet but was determined to find out. This was the first time the Cold Case Team understood that Otto Frank had held back secrets.