The arrest of Auguste van Pels
On 4 August 1944, Auguste van Pels and the other people in hiding were arrested in a raid by the SD in the Secret Annex. Helpers Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler were also arrested.
On 4 August 1944, an arrest team of the Sicherheitspolizei und Sicherheitsdienst, (Sipo-SD) raided Prinsengracht 263 and the Secret Annex. The team was led by SS-Hauptscharführer Karl Silberbauer and included the detectives Willem Grootendorst and Gezinus Gringhuis. All eight people in hiding and two helpers, Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler, were arrested and taken to the Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung building at Adama van Scheltemaplein 1 in Amsterdam. It has never been fully clarified how the SD tracked down the people in hiding. [1]
Nothing concrete is known about Auguste van Pels' experience of the 4 August 1944 raid on the building at Prinsengracht 263. The course of events on the third floor of the annex during the arrest is known only through statements by Otto Frank and Karl Silberbauer.
During the raid, Auguste van Pels was in the kitchen cum living room. Together with Hermann and Peter van Pels, Otto Frank and Fritz Pfeffer, she was directed to the floor below.[2] They were all gathered together there.
Together with helpers Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler, Auguste van Pels and the other people in hiding were taken to the SD building on Euterpestraat. The people in hiding were taken the next day to the Detention Centre on Weteringschans, and later on to Westerbork.[3]
Footnotes
- ^ Zie ook: Gertjan Broek, Onderzoeksverslag inzake verraad en arrestatie van de onderduikers in het Achterhuis, Anne Frank Stichting (december 2016)
- ^ Nationaal Archief, Den Haag (NL-HaNA), Centraal Archief Bijzondere Rechtspleging (CABR), inv. nr. 23892 (dossier van Maaren): Verklaring Otto Frank in proces-verbaal Rijksrecherche, p. 3.
- ^ NL-HaNA, CABR, inv. nr. 23892 (dossier van Maaren): Verklaring Otto Frank, p.v.b. 86/1963 v.H., p. 1-5.