Anne Frank.
A young Jewish girl who captivated the world through her diary while in hiding during WWII.
If you read the diary and wondered who betrayed the occupants hiding in the annex, The Last Secret of the Secret Annex will interest you.
The world has heard from Otto Frank and several helpers who assisted the people in the annex, but one helper kept her story close to her – Bep Voskuijl. Not wanting to draw attention to herself, she usually refused interviews. Now, after her death, her son Joop van Wijk-Voskuijl, inspired by and working with a young researcher Jeroen De Bruyn, brings readers new information in The Last Secret of the Secret Annex coming out May 16, 2023.
Readers will hear another point of view and new stories about the experience of WWII in Amsterdam. Joop tells stories he heard from his mother who, closer in age to Anne Frank than the others, seems to have had a more intimate friendship with her than the other helpers. (Bep, the youngest of the protectors, was 23 when the family went into hiding.) Joop, being Bep’s son, interviewed family and friends that may not have talked to other researchers/reporters.
It is widely known that Anne Frank’s diary was released by her father after he censored certain passages. This new book questions if some of those pages were left out to protect one of the helpers, keeping her family out of the crosshairs. It wasn’t unusual to have both Jewish supporters and Nazi collaborators within the same family. Could Bep have had a personal connection to the betrayer? Joop reveals information that will give readers an interesting theory that someone who has been overlooked was the betrayer.
Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC of The Last Secret of the Secret Annex.
Check out these books!
If this WWII non-fiction book interests you, check out my WWII historical fiction book reviews: The Winemaker’s Wife by Kristin Harmel, The Ways We Hide by Kristina McMorris, The Clockmaker’s Wife by Daisy Wood, The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel, The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel, and Map of the Heart by Susan Wiggs.
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