Betrayal of Anne Frank - The Arrest

The Arrest

At around 10 a.m. on Friday 4 August 1944, the warehouseman of Prinsengracht 263, Willem van Maaren, was met by a uniformed German officer, Karl Silberbauer, and several plain-clothed Dutch policemen. While one of the policemen stayed with van Maaren in the warehouse, the others made their way to the first floor above where they found Victor Kugler (Kraler) in his office at the rear of the building, and Miep Gies (Miep), Bep Voskuijl (Elli), and Johannes Kleiman (Koophuis) in theirs at the front. They were instructed to stay in the room but in the confusion that followed, Bep managed to escape with a few documents which would have incriminated their black market contacts. Kugler was instructed by Silberbauer to accompany him and the policemen on a search of the building and, after investigating the storerooms on the second floor of the front building, the officers took him to the first floor of the rear building, to the corridor in front of the hiding place. In the meantime, Miep was told at gunpoint to stay where she was while Silberbauer searched the building. Miep and Bep found Anne's diaries and papers after the eight prisoners, together with Kugler and Kleiman, had been arrested and removed from the building. It became apparent to Bep, Miep and Miep's husband Jan (who knew about and assisted the people in hiding), that the specific nature of the arrest indicated they had been betrayed rather than discovered by chance by the Gestapo.