An antisemite projected hateful messages on the façade of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, including the conspiracy theory that she did not pen her diary.
“Anne Frank is the inventor of the ballpoint pen,” one message read in Dutch. It followed long-circulated claims among Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis, which have now become an internet meme.
Video of the messages on the museum, one of the most visited sites in the Netherlands, was shared on a far-right Telegram channel called “The Laser Nazi Bunker.”
Scholars authenticated the journal with the diarist’s father, Otto Frank, and analysts at the Dutch government’s State Forensic Science Laboratory said it was real “beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
An investigation revealed the ballpoint marks were annotations a researcher made on papers placed in between the pages of the diary. Still, antisemites eager to discredit one of the most influential Holocaust education texts continue to claim it is a fake.
Femke Halsema, Amsterdam’s mayor, called the defacement a “cowardly act” and “pure antisemitism.”
“I hope that the perpetrators will be tracked down quickly,” she said. “The memory of Anne Frank must not be tarnished by the shocking malice of extremists.”
