Rosemary Sullivan

I feel like Rosemary Sullivan and Laura Hillenbrand went to the same school of biography writing. There's such immediacy to the way they write and backed up with solid research. Clearly there's some creative licence taken but I feel that's unavoidable in any biography. It just depends on the author's intentions regarding absolute facts and readability. You can drily say the person walked every time they walked or you can say they staggered sauntered shuffled instead to achieve the scene show more you're trying to set. In any case, there are more than enough references to back up the facts that the emotive aspects as described by Sullivan comes across as authentic.

Svetlana, Svetlana, what a life. Or indeed what so many lives she had to live. The book begins with her defection and what an extremely effective way of immediately realising her complexities. Then the story more or less begins chronologically from her childhood with her defection serving as a clean midway point between her Soviet life and her American life.

Throughout, the book remained fast-paced and well-written and researched, maintaining the tension and intrigue. Svetlana is rendered sympathetically but not faultless. I wonder how different her life would've been if she never went to Taliesin. Or would there have been another manipulation around the corner? Perhaps as the daughter of such an infamous man, there was just no escaping the rumours and exploitation. In the end, Svetlana seemed to have continued living exactly the way she wanted under her circumstances and I hope Olga/Chrese is too.

Things of note:
- The first leg of Svetlana's defection flights to the US was a Qantas flight to Rome. Who at the original Qantas set-up could've imagined that one day, one of its flights!
- The defection flight timeline is still a bit confusing for me as the book says if only the underling had checked the flight status after receiving vehement opposition to Svetlana's defection, they would've realised they could've been recalled since they've been sitting in the airport for two hours. But the paragraph before said that the opposition only sent through after the flight had taken off?
- Sullivan described "webbed toes" as one of the reasons Stalin never swam but surely that's an advantage!
- The exact sentence "Beria was a Mingrelian from Western Georgia" appeared twice over a hundred pages which made me smile thinking that Sullivan just had that phrase saved on her notes. A peek behind the process!
- Even after the book informed us that Olga wanted to be called Chrese, the book continued referring to her as Olga. I wonder who made that decision to use her old name and why?
- The book did a trick on me by saying that Olga/Chrese won against her mother's flightiness and would stay at the same boarding school until she was eighteen. Then next chapter, Svetlana uprooted her back to the Soviet Union for eighteen months!

Aside: recently I had been recommended articles with headlines such as Who Betrayed Anne Frank, which I've been firmly not clicking. And only the other day, I saw that there was a book recently published on that very topic, written by no other than Rosemary Sullivan! But just as with the articles, I probably won't partake. show less

I started reading this book just prior to all the recent news coverage and suspension of the Dutch publishing of the book.

Even before that news broke by the time I hit page 30 I had a serious question about the team behind this book.

But first, I feel it needs to be pointed out that Rosemary Sullivan who wrote this book was hired by the team to write the book. Much, if not all, of the book is research the team did. The conclusion therefore is the team’s not Sullivan’s. This doesn’t let show more Sullivan completely off the hook for the hot mess this book is, but the team aspect should be noted. The main members of the team that are most often mentioned are Thijis Bayens, Luc Gerrits, Pieter van Twisk, Vince Pankoke, and Monique Koemans. Additionally, I will not be using the name of the notary who was a member of the Jewish Council during WII because the support for the conclusion that he is guilty is so weak. Also spoilers.

And the team aspect is important. By page 30, Sullivan has introduced the major players of the Cold Case Team and not one single member is a historian whose area of focus is the Holocaust. There are historians but Sullivan describes them as public historians or “young historians” (and if you look up the young historians, they are described as public historians). Now public historians are important because of their training and knowledge of archives and research. But a specialist in the Holocaust would also be important. It should be noted that Sullivan includes not only a list of the team but also a list a consultants, and at least two of the consultants do seem to specialize in history of the second World War. One in art, and another in the Dutch police. However, a Dutch news source is reporting that one of the historian is claiming he only spoke with a member of the team twice and doesn’t know why he was listed as being associated with the project on a grant application (see here.

A historian who works in the field of Holocaust studies would have given more depth to the knowledge of the Jewish Councils as well as the use of Jewish informers by the Germans and Dutch police to catch other Jews. When dealing with both these issues the book lack depth and makes very board statements without nuance or even context. The chapter about Jewish Councils, for instance, lacks depth, is too general, and seems to be designed to steer the reader into accepting a claim put forward without proof.

But it is not just the lack of a historian that raises questions. There are a few strange pieces, like how the team leaders seem to be surprised at the friction between the two Anne Frank Trusts -the one that runs the house (Anne Frank House) and the one that owns the copyright (Anne Frank Fonds). There was a lawsuit between the two in 2015, and if the team started research six years, it seems really surprising that the men seem clueless about the issues, which is strange considering. Also, while the Fonds is usually portrayed as the more strictly correct and controlling of the two foundations (it does really protect copyright), they raise a good point about the proposed title “A Cold Case Diary: Anne Frank” - it wasn’t just Anne and Otto Frank who were betrayed – though at times the book seems to put forward that view. There is also a line about how an investigator looking at outside of the house and knowing that there was secret place inside as he stand outside of the house a few years ago. While he has a point, it also is strange because he is standing there with the knowledge of what it was. There also is a line that basically says it is impossible to find someone in the Netherlands who doesn’t have a connection to WWII, which seems like a slap to immigrants.

But the real issue is with the accusation. The Cold Case Team contends that the Jewish Council had a list of Jews in hiding and that the notary had access to this list and basically traded it (or a location on the list) for the lives of himself and his family.

The first problem is that the story of Jewish Council having a list comes from a German who also contends that the list was made because Jews in hiding put the hiding address return address. So the source of the story is a bit suspect.

Second problem is that no historian of the Holocaust has ever seen such a list connected to any Jewish Council. The Cold Case Team has no proof, no document that proves such a list existed.

Thirdly, the Cold Case Team cannot prove that even if such a list exist (and there is no proof of such list existing in regards to any Jewish Council) that the Annex address was on it. The team presumes that such list existed and assumes that the Annex was on it because an informer said something. And why the informer went to the Council and not to the Dutch police or Germans instead is confusing.

Fourthly, the Cold Case Team presumes because there the notary was not deported and wasn’t in one of two hiding places, he and his wife were not in hiding even though his children were. (After reading the book, I found historians who stated there is proof that the notary and his wife were in fact in hiding. One is : here
Finally, there is how the book and what seems to be the team deals with granddaughter of the notary. Sullivan notes that the name of the woman was changed at her request, and then name of the man who hide her mother was also not mentioned out of respect for privacy. The granddaughter is described as being her fifties and having being born after the death of her grandfather (the notary who died in 1950). We are told that the notary’s wife (the grandmother) died in 1968 and that the grand daughter had the task of going though “their Amsterdam home”. Later, we are told that the granddaughter had no memory of her grandparents speaking about being hiding. The thing is how would she have a memory of her grandfather saying anything if she was born after he died. Not to mention, if the interviews occurred in 2018 and 2019 and she was in her fifties, how old was she when her grandmother died? For instance, if the granddaughter was 60 in 2017, she would have been born in 1957, which meant she was, according to the book, responsible for cleaning out her grandmother’s house when she was 11.

I’m confused. There is either fudging of dates, translation issues, or just bad writing here.

Also the Dutch news is reporting that the granddaughter is saying her grandfather was in hiding at the time.

Also, the book moves from using words such as “likely” to describe the suscept to words that indicate and imply iron clad conviction of guilt on behalf of the team.

Finally, even before reading the book, I had an issue with the title and I wonder if it is a Dutch to English translation issue. Betrayal implies something personal. For me (and maybe it is just me), if someone betrayed you to the Nazis it was someone you trusted with the knowledge, not someone who came across the knowledge (who would be an informer). So betrayal is a strange word to use, and it does seem the Dutch is different because at points Sullivan talks about Dutch people being charged with betrayal. This is confusing because she also at times uses betrayal and collaborating interchangeably or than as two different things. But more importantly, if giving up a family you had never meet was something you had to do to save your family, is it a betrayal? And aren’t the Nazis still to blame?

The book does not seem to consider this point or the pressure put on people to inform (or how unusual the Annex people in terms of numbers or even the risks those who hide Jews took).

What is most surprising about this is that no editor on the HarperCollins team said, “hey, wait a sec maybe we should have some historian fact checking this shit”. Because this shit is dangerous. You already have jerks saying that the Dutch publisher is in the pocket of the Jewish conspiracy controlling world bs. No, the book is not peer reviewed or fact checked. It is a bad book. Christ, why the hell didn’t any review pick up on these problems? show less

There is an alternative universe, I’m sure, where Elie Wiesel and Anne Frank BOTH survived the war and spent decades writing to the world about it.

In some sense, I come off wondering why bother with this, as the principals are long dead. But this was a fascinating read. I’m glad it went on sale when it did.

Anne Frank will forever be known as the young Dutch girl who survived being in hiding for over 700 days with her family and three other people. Her diary, given to her father upon his return from the concentration camps, allowed the world to see a small part of her everyday life from the most mundane to the most terrifying. Her diary stops two days before the raid that would change everything.

A group of investigators and a retired FBI agent are hoping to answer the eternal question of who show more betrayed the Franks? Using archived documents, photos, videos, maps, and good old-fashioned research they hope to find the answer. They begin with several theories including that a new warehouse worker who they believe was aware that people were being hidden in the building and were a known thief, a woman known to turn in hiding Jews in return for money or favors, a family member of one of the helpers who have a known history with the Nazis, and a member of the Jewish Council whose job it was to make decisions on behalf of the Jews in the Netherlands.

The team breaks down each scenario, looks for evidence to back up the scenario, and attempts to come up with a motive for the possible betrayal. Each theory is explained, the evidence is broken down for the reader, and then when a theory is eliminated the author goes into detail as to why. The effort and reverence that is given to the investigation is inspiring and shows just how serious these investigators took this case.

As someone who has read multiple books on Anne Frank, her history, and her helpers I was very interested in this new book. I found myself drawn into the investigation and following along with the investigators' train of thought. I will keep the final theory a secret, but I can agree with why they believe this person is the best option although we will never be 100% sure of who betrayed those who hid in the Annex and what their motive was. This is a book I would suggest reading and coming to your own conclusion. show less