Suspect in Anne Frank House anti-Semitism incident handed over to Dutch authorities
German authorities handed transferred a 41-year-old man suspected of projecting anti-Semitic slogans on the Anne Frank House on February 6 to the Netherlands last Friday. The Public Prosecution Service (OM) also suspects the man of crimes related to the production and distribution of a video in which images from the incident were combined with "discriminatory" text, the OM confirmed on Monday.
The man has both Polish and Canadian citizenship. He was arrested in Poland in April, but was released pending further investigation. He was banned from leaving the country while the case was under investigation.
"However, he did not comply with this prohibition. On July 8, the German police arrested him at Frankfurt Airport when he tried to travel to Canada," the OM said.
The man was brought before the examining magistrate on Monday, who decided to remand him into custody for at least another two weeks. The man must appear before the court in Amsterdam on October 5.
The text, "Anne Frank is the inventor of the ballpoint pen," appeared in Dutch on the Anne Frank House. The Anne Frank House previously explained that this refers to a conspiracy theory from the extreme right, which suggests that Anne Frank's diary is a forgery because of a note on a separate sheet of paper found inside. That note was written with a ballpoint pen.
Conspiracy theorists believe this gives credibility to Holocaust deniers, as the type of pen only became common after World War II. The Anne Frank House has repeatedly said the note was written by a researcher analyzing the diary years after the war had ended.
"With this they want to question or deny the existence of the Holocaust," the foundation said.
Reporting by ANP