Is the Diary of Anne Frank Genuine?

Recently, news sources have reported that 265 books relating to Anne Frank have been vandalized in Tokyo libraries.  Since the Anne Frank diary is one of the sacred works of the Holocaust religion, we should take the time to question what exactly was vandalized: Documents of true historical importance or works of fiction.  The following is a brief summary of Professor Robert Faurisson’s work, Is The Diary of Anne Frank Genuine? Although Professor Faurisson conducts several investigations, I will cover just the first three:  internal criticism, the premises of the Anne Frank house, and Faurisson’s interview of Mr. Otto Frank.

Professor Faurisson, a specialist in text and document criticism, begins his study by critically assessing the text of the document itself (are the facts contained therein consistent with itself and reality?).  To the neighbors and authorities, the annex at 263 Prinsengracht, where Anne Frank and six to seven other occupants are said to have hid from the Germans from June 1942 to August 1944, was thought to be unoccupied.  In a 1977 interview with Professor Faurisson, Anne's father, Otto Frank, indicated that he confirmed with his neighbors and others in the town that no one believed the annex to be occupied while they were secretly living there. Is it possible that eight people could live in those quarters and remain secret while engaging in the actions described in the Diary?

1. The annex in which they stayed was thought to be vacant.  Both common sense and the Diary itself tell us that the numerous occupants hiding in the building would need to be extremely quiet—there were “enemies” all around them.  If discovered, they would be turned over to the Germans (which, of course, happened in 1944).  With this in mind, there are several notable passages in the Diary that bring up the significantly loud noises that were routinely made: (1) As noted on August 5 1943, Mrs. Van Daan, one of the occupants in hiding, used a noisy vacuum cleaner everyday at 12:30pm. (2) On August 4 1943, it is noted that an alarm clock was used. (3) Carpentry work was completed by those in hiding (the swinging cupboard, the boy Peter split wood in the attic, wooden candlestick, etc.).  (4) A radio was used, doors were slammed, there were arguments, yelling, laughing, etc.
2. The occupants of the annex burned their refuse, but no one seemed to notice the smoke coming from an apparently uninhibited building.
3. Although they arrived at the building on July 6 1942, they did not dare to make a fire until October 30.  What did they do with their refuse up to then?
4. Professor Faurisson points out that they had abundant food; each usually had three square meals a day.  A “nice greengrocer” made very large deliveries during the lunch hour. Other sources indicate that food was very scarce in the city at the time.  “This is hard to believe. In a city described elsewhere as starving, how could a greengrocer leave his store, in broad daylight, with such loads to go to deliver them to a house located in a busy neighborhood? How could this greengrocer, in his own neighborhood (he was ‘at the corner’), avoid meeting his normal customers for whom, in that time of scarcity, he ought normally to be a person to be sought out and begged for favors?”
5. The swinging cupboard: “The invention of the ‘swinging cupboard’ is an absurdity. In fact, the part of the house which is supposed to have protected the persons in hiding existed well before their arrival. Therefore, to install a cupboard is to point out, if not someone's presence, at least a change in that part of the property. That transformation of the premises -- accompanied by the noise of the carpentry work -- could not have escaped the notice of the ‘enemies’ and, in particular, of the cleaning woman.” (More on this point below)
6. Additional problems with the text include the opening and closing of windows, the use of electricity, the coal was acquired from the common pile with no one noticing, the opening and closing of curtains, the use of water/toilet, cooking, etc.

Professor Faurisson goes on to study the premises and determines that it would be impossible to live in the annex without being discovered.  There were numerous windows at the annex.  Neighbors and those who worked in the main house were in very close proximity to them; they had clear views of the building and would have smelled the cooking odors and heard the noises being made in the supposedly vacant rooms.  While inspecting the premises, Faruisson noted that he "counted two hundred windows of old houses from which people had a view of the 'Anne Frank House.'"

The last section that I will discuss is the interview with Mr. Otto Frank, Anne's father. Professor Faurisson interviewed Mr. Frank for a total of nine hours on March 24 and 25 1977.  Mr. Frank confirmed that it was Anne alone who had written the manuscripts, but he admitted that he altered some of the text when typing out the “tapuscript” given to the publishers. The reasons given for the alterations were that the manuscripts included some repetitions, they included some indiscretions, and there were some omissions.  To make up for these omissions, Mr. Frank admitted to adding some benign additions to the “tapuscrupt.”  He also changed certain dates and names.  According to Faurission, Mr. Frank could not sufficiently explain several of his criticisms of the text itself.  For example:

1. Mr. Frank indicated that after the war, no one mentioned that they expected that anyone was hiding in the annex.  When asked about the addition of the swinging cupboard on the 2nd floor landing, Mr. Frank indicated that the housekeeper, a potential “enemy,” never went there to clean and thus did not notice the new cupboard.  Beforehand, Faurisson confirmed with Mr. Frank that those in hiding never did any housekeeping outside of cleaning a part of the annex.  Thus, “[t]he logical conclusion of Mr. Frank's two statements therefore became: ‘For twenty-five months, no one had done any cleaning of the landing on the second floor.’ In the face of that improbability, Mrs. Frank suddenly broke in to say to her husband: ‘Nonsense! No cleaning on that landing! In a factory! But there would have been dust this high!’ What Mrs. Frank could have added is that the landing was supposed to have served as a passageway for the people in hiding in their comings and goings between the annex and the front house. The trail of their goings and comings would have been obvious in the midst of so much accumulated dust, even without taking into account the dust from the coal brought from downstairs.”
2. Another example as told by Professor Faurisson:  “I would take one other example of Mr. Frank's explanations. According to him, the people who worked in the front house could not see the main part of the annex because of the ‘masking paper on the window panes.’ This statement, which is found in the brochure of the ‘museum,’ was repeated to me by Mr. Frank in the presence of his wife. Without pausing at that statement, I went on to another subject: that of the consumption of electricity. I made the remark that the consumption of electricity in the house must have been considerable. Because Mr. Frank was surprised by my remark, I stated it precisely: ‘That consumption must have been considerable because the electric light was on all day in the office on the courtyard and in the store on the courtyard in the front house.’ Mr. Frank then said to me: ‘How is that? The electric light is not necessary in broad daylight!’ I indicated to him how those rooms could not receive daylight, knowing that the windows had some ‘masking paper’ on them. Mr. Frank then answered me that those rooms were not so very dark: a disconcerting answer which found itself in contradiction with the statement of the booklet written by Mr. Frank: ‘Spices must be kept in the dark.’ Mr. Frank then dared to add that, all the same, what one saw through those windows on the courtyard was only a wall. He specified, contrary to all evidence, that one did not see that it was the wall of a house! That detail contradicted the following passage of the same prospectus: ‘therefore, although you saw windows, you could not see through them, and everyone took it for granted that they overlooked the garden.’ I asked if those masked windows were nevertheless sometimes open, if only for airing out the office where they received visitors, if only in the summer, on swelteringly hot days. Mrs. Frank agreed with me on that and remarked that those windows must all the same have been open sometimes. Silence from Mr. Frank.”
3. Mr. Frank was not able to explain how they remained undetected despite the loud noises (vacuum, alarm clock, etc.).  Mr. Frank: "Mr. Faurisson, you are theoretically and scientifically right. I agree with you 100 percent. What you pointed out to me was, in fact, impossible. But, in practice, it was nevertheless in that way that things happened."
4. One explanation of why the Germans did not discover the annex is that they were unfamiliar with the Dutch architecture.  When asked about this point, and how it was that the smoke coming from the annex was did not tip off the “enemy” as to their presence, Mr. Frank responded:  “You are quite right. In the explanations that are given to visitors, it is necessary to simplify. That is not so serious. It is necessary to make that agreeable to visitors. This is not the scientific way of doing things. One is not always able to be scientific."
5. Professor Faurisson on how Mr. Frank distorted the layout of the building in the published books: “I questioned him about the layout of the premises. I had noted some anomalies in the plan of the house, such as it is reproduced - by Mr. Frank -- in all the editions of the Diary. Those anomalies had been confirmed for me by my visit to the museum (taking account of the changes made in the premises in order to make it into a museum). It was then that once again Mr. Frank went on to be led, in the face of the physical evidence, to make some new and important concessions to me, especially, as is going to be seen in regard to the "swinging cupboard." He began by admitting that the diagram of the plan ought not to have concealed from the reader that the small courtyard which separates the front house from the annex was common to No. 263 (the Frank house) and to No. 265 (the house of their neighbors and "enemies"). It seems bizarre that, in the Diary, there was not the slightest allusion to the fact, which, for the persons in hiding, was of extreme importance. Mr. Frank then acknowledged that the diagram of the place let people believe that on the third floor the flat roof was not accessible; but that roof was accessible by a door from the annex and it could very well have offered to the police or to the "enemies" an easy way of access into the very heart of the premises inhabited by the persons in hiding. Finally and especially, Mr. Frank conceded to me that the "swinging cupboard" did not make any sense. He recognized that his ruse could not, in any case, have prevented a search of the annex, seeing that that annex was accessible in other ways, and especially in the most natural way -- the entrance door leading out to the garden.”

Professor goes on to tackle additional issues regarding the authenticity of the Anne Frank Diary, but I hope that this brief introduction to the study may spark some interest in the study.