(ReliableNews.org) – In the 1980s, papers written with a ballpoint pen were found in Anne Frank’s diary. A conspiracy theory was born. Now, a court has sentenced a man to two months in jail for spreading a lie.
In February, alleged neo-Nazi Robert Wilson took a trip to Amsterdam. While he was in the Netherlands, he projected “Ann [sic] Frank invented the ballpoint pen” on the side of the Anne Frank House Museum. His message was a nod to the conspiracy theory that Frank didn’t actually write the journal because of the papers found in it. They say the papers were written in ballpoint pen, a product not available in the Netherlands in the 1940s. However, experts have said those papers were placed in the diary in the 1960s.
Authorities arrested Wilson, a Polish-Canadian national, and charged him with Holocaust-denying and sharing images of his stunt online. Robert’s scrolling message was cast on the building using a laser projector he mounted on his van. The museum is in the same building the teen and her family hid in for two years while trying to avoid capture by the Nazis. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called it a “reprehensible” act when it occurred.
The court agreed and said that what Wilson did could be considered Holocaust-denying because Anne Frank’s journal is so important to the remembrance of Jews killed during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
Wilson denied casting the words on the building. He claimed he was visiting the city with his wife and daughter and had no idea where the museum was located. However, Wilson is allegedly a prominent member of a neo-Nazi group, the Goyim Defense League. He also has a history of bad behavior.
In the United States, Wilson is accused of assault and yelling homophobic slurs at someone else who lives in his neighborhood. He’s also accused of going to the Auschwitz concentration camp and holding up an antisemitic sign.
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