Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history
Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Anne Frank & the Diary
From: Ken McVay 
Organization: The Nizkor Project: http://www.nizkor.org

Archive/File: people/f/frank.anne holland.003
Last-Modified: 1994/02/15

ANNE FRANK & The Diary

Anne was just one of eight Dutch Jews who had been in hiding for two
years and thirty days when they were discovered and arrested by the
Nazis and deported from Amsterdam to the death camps in Poland.
Herman Van Pels, a business associate of Anne's father, was gassed
upon the group's arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, September 6, 1944
(Netherlands Red Cross, dossier 103586).  His wife died "between
April 9 and May 8, 1945, in Germany or in Czechoslovakia,"
(Netherlands Red Cross, dossier 103586).  Their son Peter died on
May 5, 1945, in Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, after a
forced march from Auschwitz (Netherlands Red Cross, dossier 135177).
Dr. Friedrich Pfeffer, a friend of the family, died December 20, 1944,
at Neuengamme concentration camp (Netherlands Red Cross, dossier 7500).
Anne's mother died January 6, 1945, at Auschwitz-Birkenau (Netherlands
Red Cross, dossier 117265).  Anne and her elder sister Margot died of
typhus sometime around March 31, 1945, at Bergen-Belsen concentration
camp (Netherlands Red Cross, dossiers 117266 and 117267).  Of the eight,
only one, Anne's father, Otto Frank, survived.

Two non-Jews, Johannes Kleiman and Victor Gustav Kugler, business
associates of Otto Frank, were arrested as well, for aiding the Frank
family.  Both were sentenced to _Arbeitseinsatz_ (labor service) in
Germany, and both survived the war.

In 1981, the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation submitted
Anne Frank's handwritten diaries to the Dutch State Forensic Science
Laboratory of the Ministry of Justice to determine their authenticity.
The State Forensic Science Laboratory examined the materials used--
the ink, paper, glue, etc.--and the handwriting and issued a report
of some 270 pages.  "The report of the State Forensic Science Laboratory
has convincingly demonstrated that both versions of the diary of Anne
Frank were written by her in the years 1942 to 1944.  The allegations
that the diary was the work of someone else (after the war or otherwise)
are thus conclusively refuted."  Furthermore, that "despite corrections
and omissions..._The_Diary_of_Anne_Frank_ [i.e., the published version
of the diaries] does indeed contain `the essence' of Anne's writings,
and that there are no grounds on which the term `forgery' can be applied
to the work of the editors or publishers of the book."

Anne Frank, _The_Diary_of_Anne_Frank:_The_Critical_Edition_,
Prepared by the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation,
edited by David Barnouw and Gerrold Van Der Stroom, (New York,
Doubleday, 1989) p. 166.

Above document provided by Danny Keren, in a post to the net on May 16th, 
1992. It was quickly followed by expanded information from Chana - Braun,
who expanded upon the report as follows:

The document examination has, where possible, borne on the paper, the glue
and the fiber used in the manufacture of the diaries and the standards of
comparison. In addition, the ink and pencil deposits of the written text
have been examined.
 
The glue and fibers used in the binding of the diaries were analyzed by
infrared spectrometry. The spectra of the glue used in the diaries were
found to agree with those of bone glue and of nitrocellulose glue. These
types of glues were in common use during the supposed period of
manufacture. After about 1950 they were generally displaced by synthetic
glue (polyvinyl acetate).
 
A fiber analysis was made of the material used to cover the diary and of
the thread used in the binding of the sections. In the first case, cotton
and viscose (rayon) fibers were found. The bindings consisted of cotton
fiber and flax fiber. These fibers were in common use during the supposed
period of manufacture.
 
The samples of the paper used in the diaries, and in the loose sheets, were
analyzed as to their sizing, glues and fibers. The sizing was examined by
X-ray fluorescence. The elementary composition obtained by this method
agreed fully with that obtained from the analysis of six random samples of
reference material manufactured during the period from 1939 up to, and
inclusive of, 1942.
 
The glues were examined by qualitative chemical analysis. The main subatnce
found was starch paste.
 
The possible presence of so-called whiteners was first examined under
ultraviolet light. No fluorescent phenomena were observed. Upon further
analysis, using thin-layer chromatorgraphy, the presence of whiteners could
be positively excluded. This was important since the use of whiteners did
not occur prior to 1952.
 
The fiber of the paper samples was found by TNO, the Delft fiber institute,
to consist in the main of coniferous cellulose, straw cellulose and ground
wood pulp.
 
These findings all served to show that no anachronism whatsoever existed
between the supposed and the actual period of manufacture.
 
The standards of comparison could not, because of partial destruction, be
subjected to all the methods of analysis mentioned above. All the tests
that could be made failed to reveal any anachronism.
 
The ink deposits found on the standards of comparison, on the diaries and
on the loose sheets, consist, in the main, of gray-blue fountain pen ink in
which iron was clearly present. At the time, iron-gallotannate ink was in
general use. Only after 1950 were inks with no, or a much lower, iron
content introduced.
 
Beside the gray-blue fountain pen ink, the diaries and loose sheets also
contained: thin red ink, green and red pencil and black pencil.
 
None of the tests produced any indication that the diaries, the loose
sheets and the items submitted for comparison, together with the ink
deposits found in them, are of a later date than the supposed period of
origin.
 
A more complete summary of the complete report made by the State Forensic
Science Laboratory is readily available in _The Diary of Anne Frank: The
Critical Edition_.
 

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