We also want to thank all the people who helped us develop our own digital investigational infrastructure and artificial intelligence, principally Xomnia, whose managing director, Ollie Dapper, from the start fully supported our project and whose data scientists Robbert van Hintum and Marius Helf were responsible for the data store that functioned as the foundation of the later AI program. This program was run on Microsoft Azure software, which was made available for us by Microsoft, thanks to Brian Marble and Jordan Passon. The software was further customized by a team from Plain Concepts: Ingrid Babel, Manuel Rodrigo Cabello Malagón, Marta de Carlos López, Alejandro Hidalgo, Carlos Landeras Martinez, Olga Martí Rodrigues, Francisco Pelaez Aller, Fleurette Poiesz, Sara San Luis Rodríguez, and Daniela Solis. And finally, we are grateful to the people from the Branded Entertainment Network—Hannah Butters, Erin Larnder, Abigail Mieszczak, and Loriel Weiss—who provided much of the hardware needed to run the software, as well as Paul Oranje and Anton Raves, who provided all ICT support for the project.
The archives played a crucial role in our investigation. They are mentioned all through the book and in many of the sources and footnotes, but we would still like highlight some of them. First of all, the people at the Anne Frank Stichting were very helpful, especially Teresien da Silva, Maatje Mostart, and Annemarie Bekker. We also owe gratitude to the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam and especially its director, Emile Schrijver. At the Amsterdam City Archives we received great support from its director, Bert de Vries, and program manager, Benno van Tilburg.
And finally, the two institutes where, without doubt, our researchers spent most of their time, the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam and the National Archives in The Hague. Of the first we would like to mention its director, Frank van Vree, who immediately sympathized with our project, and of the latter we would especially like to thank its former director, Collections and Public, Irene Gerrits, and service manager, Fenna Flietstra. We are grateful also to the many archive employees of both institutions who patiently continued to provide us with all requested files.
Ultimately, the investigation is key, but as with most things in life, it required adequate funding. From the start it was clear that this would be an expensive endeavor, and it took us quite some time to raise the necessary funds. From the moment we went public with our idea, it became clear that we were touching on a very sensitive topic. Afraid of the outcome, many potential sponsors did not want to take the risk of being involved. We were adamant that the investigation would be absolutely objective, and there were some parties who showed interest in a sponsorship, but we ultimately declined their support because we suspected that they might have interests that conflicted with the independence and objectivity we required. We reached out to the public and received many small private donations, for which we are extremely grateful. Jaap Rosen Jacobson and Oshri Even-Zohar came to our rescue in our darkest hour of need.
We also received a generous grant from the City of Amsterdam, thanks particularly to city councilors Simone Kukenheim and Touria Meliani, who fully understood that during the war the city of Amsterdam lost 10 percent of its citizens, an atrocity that should never be forgotten and that left a permanent scar on the city. We are also deeply indebted to Ger Baron, Tijs Roelofs, and Tamas Erkelens of the City of Amsterdam for their advice and support. And, of course, we received publisher advances for this book.
Then there are, of course, the people who made this publication possible. First, author Rosemary Sullivan, who, notwithstanding the great distance between Canada and the Netherlands as well as the severe covid-19 restrictions, managed to capture the essence of this project in a poignant way and produce this wonderful book. With so many actors scattered over multiple countries and continents, over so much time, and with so much information to sift through, we can only appreciate, admire, and respect her work.
We are deeply grateful to our HarperCollins editor, Sara Nelson, who, with her never-ending enthusiasm and confidence, made this an unforgettable journey for us all. We are also very grateful to our publisher, Jonathan Burnham, who along with Sara believed in this project from the beginning and on whose advice and support we could always count. Our gratitude also extends to our Dutch publishers, managing director Tanja Hendriks and publisher Laurens Ubbink of Ambo|Anthos, who gave us valuable input during the writing process. Our gratitude also extends to our literary agents, Marianne Sch?nbach and Diana Gvozden from the Marianne Sch?nbach Literary Agency in Amsterdam.