Anne Frank Cold Case to Be Reopened by Retired FBI Agent

Anne Frank, the Jewish teenager who chronicled her time in hiding with her family during the Holocaust before being discovered, will have her cold case into who betrayed her reopened by a retired FBI agent, The Guardian reported.

"The Diary of Anne Frank" gave a look at a family in hiding from Nazi forces during the Holocaust from 1942 to 1944, according to Biography.com. They were found in Amsterdam, sent to concentration camps, where she died in March, 1945, the website noted.

Some 19 forensic experts led by Vince Pankoke will use modern big data technology along with investigative techniques in hopes of hunting down who led German forces to find Frank and her family in 1944, The Guardian wrote.

While the German security service was known for keeping extensive records of those arrested, it was believed that Franks' case was destroyed during a British bombing raid in 1944, The Guardian reported.

"But I've spent a lot of time of the United States National Archives and found documents there from Amsterdam that I was told didn't exist," Pankoke, 59, told The Guardian. "Some of them are water damaged or fire damaged, and they are in technical military German, so it's going to take a while.

"But we have found lists of names of Jews arrested having being betrayed, lists of informants and names of Gestapo agents who lived in Amsterdam. All that can go into the data store, and we can find connections," he added.

Otto Frank survived and returned to Amsterdam to publish his daughter's diary in 1947, CNN reported. Dutch police investigated how the Frank family was discovered and who might have tipped off the Gestapo, suspecting a nearby warehouse worker, the network stated.

Research done by the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam last year suggested that the Germans may have found a secret conclave behind Otto Frank's office by accident, instead of being tipped off, CNN reported.

Filmmaker Thijs Bayens and Dutch journalist Pieter Van Twisk recruited Pankoke for the crowdfunded project, The Guardian reported.

The cold case was opened this past weekend with an appeal for information to people connected to the Joordan area of Amsterdam, where Anne Frank hid for two years with her father, mother, Edith, and sister, Margot, The Guardian stated.

"We are not trying to point fingers or prosecute," Pankoke told The Guardian. "I am just trying to solve the last case of my career. There is no statute of limitation on the truth."

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