Anne Frank betrayal suspect identified after 77 years - BBC News

I think the saddest part about Anne Frank is that she was just months away from surviving. That always hit me the hardest, knowing that she got so close, yet so far.

Problem is not the one who betrayed Anne to save himself. The problem is the one who destroyed the person to the point he could be able to sacrifice Anne. I was born during the war in Rwanda. I saw with my eyes, when a parent abandoned their children to save themselves. I saw one who killed his close neighbors. Many betrayed their loved one. I know they loved them but broken.

My grandfather's best friend survived the atrocities of the concentration camps. He used to say "The worst of us survived the camps. The best of us died almost immediately by refusing to put their own survival before others". He wouldn't have been surprised at all by the Frank family being betrayed by one of their own because he witnessed what people were willing to do to survive

Anne would be 94 today if she had survived the war and lived a long life. My mother is 98 and still living and I know older people than that.

I think calling him a betrayer is misrepresenting the situation. I don't expect other people to sacrifice their family, wife and children for me. The fact that this man wrote a letter to her father shows he felt bad for her.

Let’s not forget the real villain here is the Nazis. Their actions are the reason terrible, terrible things like this happened.

When I was a child, I thought the man who betrayed Anne Frank and the other 8 people in the Annex was someone completely beyond redemption, but after watching this, it completely changed my perspective. He was just doing what he had to do to survive. If he didn’t reveal the information about Anne Frank and her family, he and his own family probably would have been executed. So he was just doing what he had to do to survive. People would be betrayed no matter what he did.

I can’t imagine the pain of having to betray the trust of another family like this to save your own. What a horrible cross to have to bear.

Calling him a traitor in every other sentence is inconsiderate to say the least, we can't know the horrors these people lived through.

The fact that this informant was Jewish himself and forced to betray Anne in order to save his own family’s lives… it’s honestly one of the most chilling and disturbing things I’ve ever heard.

My soul aches for both families and making a decision that brings horrific consequences for an entire family with either choice must be agonizing...especially since both families contained children. The perhaps worst part is they were mere months away from freedom for both families, but did not know that at the time, obviously. The current situation just brings up this story once again, and 'they' can ban this story all they want, it's all over the internet and will always be known.

If you read "Nothing to Envy" stories of North Korean survivors you come to realize that the nicest people died first in the North Korean famine. Those that shared food, shared resources would die. Those that were cutthroat and stole survived. Similar stories came out of the holocaust, the famine in China. I tell my wife she would be the first to go in such a crisis because of her kind heart. Survival of the fittest in these instances means that the ultimate survivors go on to breed and the result is a group of people whose personality changed versus a group that wasn't exposed to such horror. Over decades North Koreans vs South Koreans, although originally genetically the same, may have very different genetic personalities.

It's kind of disgusting to out someone's identity just based on suspicion and calling them a traitor every other sentence, ngl.

Anyone who thinks if they were in the shoes of the other, would not have betrayed Anne, knows little about the human condition. It is a tragedy on all fronts.

Such a sad story. Seeing how happy she was in those pictures of hers is very harrowing when realizing how she descended from those feelings of what she once was

We always get mad at those who betray but we never wonder if we ourselves are capable of such a thing. Do we know how strong we are until we are placed in such a situation?

This man was a victim of his circumstances, not a betrayer or traitor. Most people will turn on you based on public opinion or fame. Unfortunately this was a matter of life and death and a real breakdown in humanity. People shouldn't have been put in that type of predicament anyways, if we're discussing choices and morals. The entire Holocaust was sickening. From the medical experiments with Mengele to the selling of the hair of Jews as fabric.

It is easy to condemn Mr. Vandenburg but until you have walked a mile in his shoes try and avoid passing judgement. If it came down to protecting your family over people you don't know most people would do exactly the same thing. I am not saying he was right, it was a despicable act but none of us will know what pressures he was under that caused him to make such a choice.

We are so obsessed with solving mysteries from history and have no concern about the atrocities happening in todays world

Clickbait. No one have been identified with certainty.