What do you think?
Rate this book
Annelies
A powerful and deeply humane new novel that asks the question: What if Anne Frank survived the Holocaust?
The year is 1945, and Anne Frank is sixteen years old. Having survived the concentration camps, but lost her mother and sister, she reunites with her father, Pim, in newly liberated Amsterdam. But it’s not as easy to fit the pieces of their life back together. Anne is adrift, haunted by the ghosts of the horrors they experienced, while Pim is fixated on returning to normalcy. Her beloved diary has been lost, and her dreams of becoming a writer seem distant and pointless now.
As Anne struggles to overcome the brutality of memory and build a new life for herself, she grapples with heartbreak, grief, and ultimately the freedom of forgiveness. A story of trauma and redemption, Annelies honors Anne Frank’s legacy as not only a symbol of hope and perseverance, but also a complex young woman of great ambition and heart.
Anne Frank is a cultural icon whose diary painted a vivid picture of the Holocaust and made her an image of humanity in one of history’s darkest moments. But she was also a person—a precocious young girl with a rich inner life and tremendous skill as a writer. In this masterful new novel, David R. Gillham explores with breathtaking empathy the woman—and the writer—she might have become.
The year is 1945, and Anne Frank is sixteen years old. Having survived the concentration camps, but lost her mother and sister, she reunites with her father, Pim, in newly liberated Amsterdam. But it’s not as easy to fit the pieces of their life back together. Anne is adrift, haunted by the ghosts of the horrors they experienced, while Pim is fixated on returning to normalcy. Her beloved diary has been lost, and her dreams of becoming a writer seem distant and pointless now.
As Anne struggles to overcome the brutality of memory and build a new life for herself, she grapples with heartbreak, grief, and ultimately the freedom of forgiveness. A story of trauma and redemption, Annelies honors Anne Frank’s legacy as not only a symbol of hope and perseverance, but also a complex young woman of great ambition and heart.
Anne Frank is a cultural icon whose diary painted a vivid picture of the Holocaust and made her an image of humanity in one of history’s darkest moments. But she was also a person—a precocious young girl with a rich inner life and tremendous skill as a writer. In this masterful new novel, David R. Gillham explores with breathtaking empathy the woman—and the writer—she might have become.
405 pages, Hardcover
First published January 15, 2019
158 people are currently reading
5505 people want to read
About the author
David R. Gillham
5 books381 followersDavid R. Gillham is a New York Times bestselling author. His latest novel, SHADOWS of BERLIN, was released in hardcover in April of 2022, and is now available in PAPERPACK, E-Book, or the award-winning Audio Book.
David loves to join book club discussions, virtually or in person. See his website at davidrgillham.com for the book club kit!
Author Bio: The author of CITY of WOMEN and ANNELIES, Gillham studied screenwriting at the University of Southern California before transitioning into fiction. After moving to New York City, he spent more than a decade in the book business, and now lives with his family in Western Massachusetts.
David loves to join book club discussions, virtually or in person. See his website at davidrgillham.com for the book club kit!
Author Bio: The author of CITY of WOMEN and ANNELIES, Gillham studied screenwriting at the University of Southern California before transitioning into fiction. After moving to New York City, he spent more than a decade in the book business, and now lives with his family in Western Massachusetts.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 393 reviews
February 10, 2019
What if?
What if Anne Frank had not died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp? What if she had lived? What would her life have been? Would she have been able to live her dream being a writer living in London or Paris?
That is the premise that David R. Gillham examines in this book. In Annelies , Anne survives and is reunited with her father, Pim. Anne is coping with life after the holocaust. Her Mother and sister are dead. Understandably, Anne is dealing with many things - the loss of loved ones, anger over what she lost- who she lost, survivors quilt, etc. She is still young and has just survived an unimaginable and traumatic horror. She is angry at her father, angry he would want to find happiness again. What will Anne do to find happiness again for herself? How will she heal? Can she?
I believe this book will evoke several thoughts and issues with readers. Some are not too happy with this look at what life would be like for Anne had she lived. But he is not the first to take on such an endeavor. I read online that a short film made by an Italian production company with Anne Frank Fonds, the Dutch foundation established by her father is examining this question. There is also a 2014 play titled "Anne" which was commissioned by the Anne Frank Fonds and it briefly looked at what would have happened had she lived. There is interest in the “what if” alternative history, but there are others who will argue that the strength and power of her diary is due to the fact that she died (in addition to her writing ability)
I believe that people's enjoyment of this book will be determined on how people feel about people wondering what her life would have been like. Would she have been angry? Would her personality have changed? Would she have survivor's quilt? How would she feel about her father marrying again? These questions can never be answered. But this book is the Author's creative exploration of what life might have been like for the cultural icon whose diary most of us have read.
The writing was quite lovely at times. I could understand how Anne could be angry and be haunted by her lost family members - especially her sister who she was with in Bergen-Belsen after being separated from their Mother. The Author spent six years researching Anne Frank before writing this book. I applaud him for that. I believe this book was his way of paying homage to her memory. I thought the Author did a great job tackling survivor's guilt and showed that things are a process. People are individuals and he showed how one person - her father choose to find happiness, while Anne struggled.
Initially, I struggled with finding my rhythm with this book. I picked it up, I put it down, etc. Then I found my way. Again, I found this book to be well written and well thought out. This "what if" or alternative history looking into what life would have been like if Anne Frank had lived.
Thank you to the Author and Viking who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.
What if Anne Frank had not died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp? What if she had lived? What would her life have been? Would she have been able to live her dream being a writer living in London or Paris?
That is the premise that David R. Gillham examines in this book. In Annelies , Anne survives and is reunited with her father, Pim. Anne is coping with life after the holocaust. Her Mother and sister are dead. Understandably, Anne is dealing with many things - the loss of loved ones, anger over what she lost- who she lost, survivors quilt, etc. She is still young and has just survived an unimaginable and traumatic horror. She is angry at her father, angry he would want to find happiness again. What will Anne do to find happiness again for herself? How will she heal? Can she?
I believe this book will evoke several thoughts and issues with readers. Some are not too happy with this look at what life would be like for Anne had she lived. But he is not the first to take on such an endeavor. I read online that a short film made by an Italian production company with Anne Frank Fonds, the Dutch foundation established by her father is examining this question. There is also a 2014 play titled "Anne" which was commissioned by the Anne Frank Fonds and it briefly looked at what would have happened had she lived. There is interest in the “what if” alternative history, but there are others who will argue that the strength and power of her diary is due to the fact that she died (in addition to her writing ability)
I believe that people's enjoyment of this book will be determined on how people feel about people wondering what her life would have been like. Would she have been angry? Would her personality have changed? Would she have survivor's quilt? How would she feel about her father marrying again? These questions can never be answered. But this book is the Author's creative exploration of what life might have been like for the cultural icon whose diary most of us have read.
The writing was quite lovely at times. I could understand how Anne could be angry and be haunted by her lost family members - especially her sister who she was with in Bergen-Belsen after being separated from their Mother. The Author spent six years researching Anne Frank before writing this book. I applaud him for that. I believe this book was his way of paying homage to her memory. I thought the Author did a great job tackling survivor's guilt and showed that things are a process. People are individuals and he showed how one person - her father choose to find happiness, while Anne struggled.
Initially, I struggled with finding my rhythm with this book. I picked it up, I put it down, etc. Then I found my way. Again, I found this book to be well written and well thought out. This "what if" or alternative history looking into what life would have been like if Anne Frank had lived.
Thank you to the Author and Viking who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.
February 27, 2019
This book is about What if Anne Frank went into hiding and survived after the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and survived the holocaust and is reunited with her father, Pim. Anne Frank is sixteen years old and the year is 1945. Anne feels like she has lost everything, her family, her friends and is very angry and emotional. She loses herself as well, since she is not the same person she use to be. Anne is adrift and haunted by the ghosts of the horrors they experienced, while Pim is fixated on returning to normalcy. Anne is haunted by her sister and talks to her a lot.
Her beloved diary is lost and she begins to lose her dreams of becoming a writer. There is so much grief and sorrow after the war. Anne struggles to find a new life for herself.
This book was so heartbreaking and emotional but I didn't feel like it was dark or graphic like other holocaust books. This one is a safe one. It had a slow burn to it. I loved The Diary of Anne Frank and I loved this one too.
I loved the writing style and savored the beautiful writing. It was a breath of fresh air. There was a lot of grief, anger, sorrow and forgiveness.
I love reading books about the holocaust because our history needs to be remembered. This is a story of trauma and redemption. I felt so sorry for Anne. She surely wasn't the same person before the holocaust and I think this book will always be remembered and not forgotten.
I thought the characters were very well developed and I was able to connect with them very well.
I want to thank, the publisher, Viking, for sending me this book in exchange for a honest review.
Her beloved diary is lost and she begins to lose her dreams of becoming a writer. There is so much grief and sorrow after the war. Anne struggles to find a new life for herself.
This book was so heartbreaking and emotional but I didn't feel like it was dark or graphic like other holocaust books. This one is a safe one. It had a slow burn to it. I loved The Diary of Anne Frank and I loved this one too.
I loved the writing style and savored the beautiful writing. It was a breath of fresh air. There was a lot of grief, anger, sorrow and forgiveness.
I love reading books about the holocaust because our history needs to be remembered. This is a story of trauma and redemption. I felt so sorry for Anne. She surely wasn't the same person before the holocaust and I think this book will always be remembered and not forgotten.
I thought the characters were very well developed and I was able to connect with them very well.
I want to thank, the publisher, Viking, for sending me this book in exchange for a honest review.
February 19, 2019
4 Stars.
Can you Imagine If? Anne Frank survived the Holocaust, hiding out in “Het Achterhuis” (The House Behind) and then surviving the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen, while her mother and her sister Margot did not? Anne Frank and her father, Pim, become the only survivors? In “ Annelies,” David R. Gillham does exactly that.
While living in The House Behind, Anne’s diary becomes her confidant, “her one true confidant, from whom she will hide nothing.”
Instead of losing her life, Anne Frank spent 25 months in Bergen-Belsen and survives, returning to Liberated Netherlands, Amsterdam and reuniting with her father Pim, who survived Auschwitz. Her father seems to have an easy time moving on as he gets remarried, while Anne, who holds onto anger and resentment, simply cannot let go of the past. For Anne, who remembers Margot and what happened to both of them, life does not go on.
Snippets of Anne Frank’s diary at the beginning of each chapter make this novel all the more real, even as we the readers, know that it is a re-imagining of Anne Frank’s life.
For me, “Annelies” is many different things. It is beautifully written: the prose is absolutely gorgeous and the storytelling is extremely well done. I applaud, Mr. Gillham for undertaking such a huge task and for conducting so many years of research to write this brilliant novel. Though I appreciate its beauty, I had a bit of a hard time imagining that Anne Frank had survived, especially seeing as “The Diary of a Young Girl” was such a huge part of my upbringing. If this had been about a character such as Anne’s friend, Hannelies, who actually survived instead, I think it might have worked better, at least for me. That aside, what I loved about this novel were the characterizations! Anne, Pim, Margot and Miep, etc., brought this book to life and I am glad I took a chance on this one. The hardships endured by those who suffered during the Holocaust are unimaginable, even if this book is a re-imagining and I thank the author for bringing this issue to the forefront.
Thank you to Viking Books and to David R. Gillham for a complimentary copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Published on Goodreads and Twitter on 2.18.19.
Excerpt to be published on Instagram.
Can you Imagine If? Anne Frank survived the Holocaust, hiding out in “Het Achterhuis” (The House Behind) and then surviving the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen, while her mother and her sister Margot did not? Anne Frank and her father, Pim, become the only survivors? In “ Annelies,” David R. Gillham does exactly that.
While living in The House Behind, Anne’s diary becomes her confidant, “her one true confidant, from whom she will hide nothing.”
Instead of losing her life, Anne Frank spent 25 months in Bergen-Belsen and survives, returning to Liberated Netherlands, Amsterdam and reuniting with her father Pim, who survived Auschwitz. Her father seems to have an easy time moving on as he gets remarried, while Anne, who holds onto anger and resentment, simply cannot let go of the past. For Anne, who remembers Margot and what happened to both of them, life does not go on.
Snippets of Anne Frank’s diary at the beginning of each chapter make this novel all the more real, even as we the readers, know that it is a re-imagining of Anne Frank’s life.
For me, “Annelies” is many different things. It is beautifully written: the prose is absolutely gorgeous and the storytelling is extremely well done. I applaud, Mr. Gillham for undertaking such a huge task and for conducting so many years of research to write this brilliant novel. Though I appreciate its beauty, I had a bit of a hard time imagining that Anne Frank had survived, especially seeing as “The Diary of a Young Girl” was such a huge part of my upbringing. If this had been about a character such as Anne’s friend, Hannelies, who actually survived instead, I think it might have worked better, at least for me. That aside, what I loved about this novel were the characterizations! Anne, Pim, Margot and Miep, etc., brought this book to life and I am glad I took a chance on this one. The hardships endured by those who suffered during the Holocaust are unimaginable, even if this book is a re-imagining and I thank the author for bringing this issue to the forefront.
Thank you to Viking Books and to David R. Gillham for a complimentary copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Published on Goodreads and Twitter on 2.18.19.
Excerpt to be published on Instagram.
March 20, 2019
What if Anne Frank had survived the Holocaust?
I first read The Diary of a Young Girl when I was around the same age she was. I remember being appalled and confused- how could humans be capable of such atrocities? This really happened? I remember deep in my heart, much like the story of Anastasia out of Russia, there was a glimmer of hope that Anne survived. I think we all wanted that, right? We could see her purpose on the pages of her writing. We could imagine a bright future, a full life. What if Anne Frank lived?
Anne Frank is now sixteen years old, and she has survived the Holocaust. Her sister and mother perished, but she is able to reunite with her father, Pim, in Amsterdam.
Anne is having a challenging time, understandably so, processing her losses and the horrors she witnessed. Pim just wants life as normal and to forget the past. To top it off, Anne’s diary, her anchor, has been lost.
Anne has many feelings to work through, including grief and heartbreak, along with trauma. Ultimately, she’s on the search for forgiveness, too.
Who would Anne be as an adult once she works through all these feelings? Would she write again?
David Gillham handles Anne’s survivor’s guilt masterfully. The writing is lyrical. This is a tribute to Anne Frank in all ways. The beautiful, full-of-heart child given a chance to survive and fulfill her dreams, answering that “what if” with sensitivity and respect. A story like this could come off as trite, but it doesn’t. It’s realistic and well-grounded. Thank you to the author for giving us Annelies.
I received a complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.
My reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com
I first read The Diary of a Young Girl when I was around the same age she was. I remember being appalled and confused- how could humans be capable of such atrocities? This really happened? I remember deep in my heart, much like the story of Anastasia out of Russia, there was a glimmer of hope that Anne survived. I think we all wanted that, right? We could see her purpose on the pages of her writing. We could imagine a bright future, a full life. What if Anne Frank lived?
Anne Frank is now sixteen years old, and she has survived the Holocaust. Her sister and mother perished, but she is able to reunite with her father, Pim, in Amsterdam.
Anne is having a challenging time, understandably so, processing her losses and the horrors she witnessed. Pim just wants life as normal and to forget the past. To top it off, Anne’s diary, her anchor, has been lost.
Anne has many feelings to work through, including grief and heartbreak, along with trauma. Ultimately, she’s on the search for forgiveness, too.
Who would Anne be as an adult once she works through all these feelings? Would she write again?
David Gillham handles Anne’s survivor’s guilt masterfully. The writing is lyrical. This is a tribute to Anne Frank in all ways. The beautiful, full-of-heart child given a chance to survive and fulfill her dreams, answering that “what if” with sensitivity and respect. A story like this could come off as trite, but it doesn’t. It’s realistic and well-grounded. Thank you to the author for giving us Annelies.
I received a complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.
My reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com
January 18, 2019
I remember a woman who worked in my husband's office. She was lovely, but always had that kind of haunted look in her eyes. It was only later that I learned she was a survivor of Auschwitz. I one day saw that number on her arm and it mesmerized me. All the horrible things she had seen and experienced and yet, here she was going to work everyday, married with children. I often wondered how or even if she slept at night.
In this book, where the premise is that Anne Frank survived, we witness a what if moment in time. Anne is reunited with her father, Pim, the ever faithful Miep, and others. The relationships, particularly with her father and his eventual new wife is at times rocky and unsteady. Anne is troubled, followed by her nightmares and seeing her dead sister, conversing with her, and haunted by a secret she is carrying. Anne searches for a reason why, why has she survived, while she harbors all those feelings that perhaps she herself has done something wrong. She is lost in a quagmire of a lost self. She blames her father, reflects often on the tenuous relationship she had with her mother, and the soreness she feels in her heart and soul. She searches for redemption and it is later on through her writing, she does find a bit of that elusive peace she desires.
What touched me most about this story, was the concept of survivor guilt which Anne and others carried. Why me, why have I lived while others perished in a reign of terror and inhumanity? We see an angry Anne searching for who it was who betrayed them, and coming to grips with that exasperation and fury that drives her body and soul. Interspersed among the story are excerpts from Anne's diary.
“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”
I wonder how much beauty, Anne would have found in today's world where hatred is running its course? I think Anne's hope for the future would be that each and every one of us carry beauty in our hearts and souls. What better way to honor Anne and the millions of others who lost and are losing their lives because of an ideology. I recommend this book for its beautiful and touching portrayal of life, and a tribute to a life, all lives that were tragically and inhumanely lost.
“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.”
Perhaps we should all try to be that single candle.
Thank you to David. R. Gillham, Fig Tree Books, and Edelweiss for a copy of this moving tribute.
This book is newly published
My reviews van also be seen here: http://yayareadslotsofbooks.wordpress...
In this book, where the premise is that Anne Frank survived, we witness a what if moment in time. Anne is reunited with her father, Pim, the ever faithful Miep, and others. The relationships, particularly with her father and his eventual new wife is at times rocky and unsteady. Anne is troubled, followed by her nightmares and seeing her dead sister, conversing with her, and haunted by a secret she is carrying. Anne searches for a reason why, why has she survived, while she harbors all those feelings that perhaps she herself has done something wrong. She is lost in a quagmire of a lost self. She blames her father, reflects often on the tenuous relationship she had with her mother, and the soreness she feels in her heart and soul. She searches for redemption and it is later on through her writing, she does find a bit of that elusive peace she desires.
What touched me most about this story, was the concept of survivor guilt which Anne and others carried. Why me, why have I lived while others perished in a reign of terror and inhumanity? We see an angry Anne searching for who it was who betrayed them, and coming to grips with that exasperation and fury that drives her body and soul. Interspersed among the story are excerpts from Anne's diary.
“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”
I wonder how much beauty, Anne would have found in today's world where hatred is running its course? I think Anne's hope for the future would be that each and every one of us carry beauty in our hearts and souls. What better way to honor Anne and the millions of others who lost and are losing their lives because of an ideology. I recommend this book for its beautiful and touching portrayal of life, and a tribute to a life, all lives that were tragically and inhumanely lost.
“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.”
Perhaps we should all try to be that single candle.
Thank you to David. R. Gillham, Fig Tree Books, and Edelweiss for a copy of this moving tribute.
This book is newly published
My reviews van also be seen here: http://yayareadslotsofbooks.wordpress...
March 15, 2019
I remember reading the heartbreaking, memorable story of Anne Frank in the novel based on her diary. In this novel, the author explores the life that Anne might have lived, had she survived.
The book covers before, during and after the war and the author's extensive research was evident. He also included some excerpts from Anne's diary. This was an emotional read with some moments of tension when families were being "caught" hiding.
In this alternative ending for Anne, she has survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and the Holocaust. She struggles with emotions that many documented survivors reported, things like survivor guilt and mourning her lost family members. It highlights the powerful emotions and devastation that Holocaust survivors after the war ended.
A well-written, thought-provoking and absorbing story. It does require you to keep in mind that this is an "imagined" ending. We will never know what Anne might have become, but with so much talent, she surely could have become a writer. Really makes you wonder....
Thanks to Viking for my review copy! Book was published on Jan 15,2019
The book covers before, during and after the war and the author's extensive research was evident. He also included some excerpts from Anne's diary. This was an emotional read with some moments of tension when families were being "caught" hiding.
In this alternative ending for Anne, she has survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and the Holocaust. She struggles with emotions that many documented survivors reported, things like survivor guilt and mourning her lost family members. It highlights the powerful emotions and devastation that Holocaust survivors after the war ended.
A well-written, thought-provoking and absorbing story. It does require you to keep in mind that this is an "imagined" ending. We will never know what Anne might have become, but with so much talent, she surely could have become a writer. Really makes you wonder....
Thanks to Viking for my review copy! Book was published on Jan 15,2019
November 21, 2018
Although this is undoubtedly intended as an act of homage to Anne Frank, I worry that it actually does a disservice to her: in imaging her survival after Bergen-Belsen, it takes away the tragic arc of her life.
I might have been able to get behind this book if the voice had been closer to the original diary but I didn't find it a convincing act of ventriloquism. Too many comments are trite rather than just youthfully innocent ('Anne is absorbing the details with excitement because she positively adores fashion,', 'to think Maurits is facing daily life toiling in a German factory or some abominable work camp, it's horrifying!') and there are some abysmal cliches such as Anne in a Red Cross camp after liberation just wanting a mirror then despairing at her ruined looks.
The whole thing feels like YA to me: the sentiments and the language in which they are couched are unconvincingly simplistic and obvious, and lack, somehow, the simple sincerity and authenticity of the diary.
I'm not automatically against the idea of imagining an 'afterlife' for Anne, though it is a problematic concept (will younger/new readers believe she really did survive?) - I just don't think this book does it with sufficient sensitivity to the character and voice of the original diary. A bold experiment, but not one I can wholeheartedly applaud.
Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley
I might have been able to get behind this book if the voice had been closer to the original diary but I didn't find it a convincing act of ventriloquism. Too many comments are trite rather than just youthfully innocent ('Anne is absorbing the details with excitement because she positively adores fashion,', 'to think Maurits is facing daily life toiling in a German factory or some abominable work camp, it's horrifying!') and there are some abysmal cliches such as Anne in a Red Cross camp after liberation just wanting a mirror then despairing at her ruined looks.
The whole thing feels like YA to me: the sentiments and the language in which they are couched are unconvincingly simplistic and obvious, and lack, somehow, the simple sincerity and authenticity of the diary.
I'm not automatically against the idea of imagining an 'afterlife' for Anne, though it is a problematic concept (will younger/new readers believe she really did survive?) - I just don't think this book does it with sufficient sensitivity to the character and voice of the original diary. A bold experiment, but not one I can wholeheartedly applaud.
Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley
January 10, 2025
Anne Frank has always been of interest, and Mr. Gillham creates a heartbreaking re-telling of what she and her family endured and what her life could have been had she survived.
We follow Anne before, during, and after the war that describes her family's confinement and the horrors they endured at the concentration camps.
Mr. Gillham brings Anne back to life and fictitiously lets us see how she is trying to put her life back together as she reunites with her father who in actuality is the only surviving family member.
The detailed writing and re-telling will hold your interest from the minute you begin reading.
This book is a tribute to all of those who suffered, survived, perished, and helped in any way possible during history's darkest hours.
Mr. Gillham did an outstanding job of researching as well as using a creative method of portraying Anne Frank's life as it may have been even though she did not survive the Holocaust.
Through Mr. Gillham’s marvelous writing style we are transported back in time as we experience what Anne experienced during her captivity and as she tries to re-enter her previous life that is always filled with the presence and reminders of her captors and how she had to comply.
ANNELIES is a beautiful, heartfelt book you will want to absorb with attention to every detail.
Anne seems as though she was and would have been a feisty young lady that the world has missed and could have learned from. 5/5
This book was given to me as ARC by the author in exchange for an honest review.
We follow Anne before, during, and after the war that describes her family's confinement and the horrors they endured at the concentration camps.
Mr. Gillham brings Anne back to life and fictitiously lets us see how she is trying to put her life back together as she reunites with her father who in actuality is the only surviving family member.
The detailed writing and re-telling will hold your interest from the minute you begin reading.
This book is a tribute to all of those who suffered, survived, perished, and helped in any way possible during history's darkest hours.
Mr. Gillham did an outstanding job of researching as well as using a creative method of portraying Anne Frank's life as it may have been even though she did not survive the Holocaust.
Through Mr. Gillham’s marvelous writing style we are transported back in time as we experience what Anne experienced during her captivity and as she tries to re-enter her previous life that is always filled with the presence and reminders of her captors and how she had to comply.
ANNELIES is a beautiful, heartfelt book you will want to absorb with attention to every detail.
Anne seems as though she was and would have been a feisty young lady that the world has missed and could have learned from. 5/5
This book was given to me as ARC by the author in exchange for an honest review.
December 9, 2018
"...the swinging bookcase that is the line of demarcation between freedom and constraint... between life in the actual world and this strange limited existence in hiding". Anne Frank had "learned to depend on words to see herself more clearly...she confesses only to the page, because if people aren't patient, paper is." Such are the thoughts of Anne Frank, the ruminations conveyed in "Diary of a Young Girl". Anne's diary provided her with an outlet for her innermost feelings while her family was in hiding in "Het Achterhuis" (The House Behind), the rear annex of Otto Frank's office building. In August 1944, the Frank family were rounded up and sent to the Punishment Barracks, the crime,..."having tried to save themselves by going into hiding". What if Anne Frank had survived the Holocaust?
"Annelies" by David R. Gillham is a historical novel imagining Anne and her papa, "Pim" as sole survivors of "Het Achterhuis". Anne's diary expressed typical teenage clashes with her mother, jealousy of her grounded, beautiful sister Margot, but, "there is no one on earth who can make her feel as safe and loved as her papa".
Imagine Anne surviving typhus and waking up in a displaced person's camp and her amazement finding out that her beloved Pim, having survived as well, was living in Amsterdam. Both Pim and Anne must deal with ghosts and survivors guilt. Anne's guilt manifest's itself in an overpowering "fight or flight" reaction. Pim's attempt to protect Anne feeds into her angst and belligerence.
This reader tended to waffle between feeling that Anne's diary should remain her sole testament as compared to an eye opening, tragic, concentration camp experience, as imagined and based on historical documents and eyewitness accounts, followed by an imagined life as a displaced person. Anne would have lived with ghosts, horror and unimaginable darkness while trying to acclimate herself to life in post-war Amsterdam. What innermost thoughts and feelings would Anne now convey as a writer?
Thank you First to Read- Penguin Random House and David R. Gillham for the opportunity to read and review "Annelies".
"Annelies" by David R. Gillham is a historical novel imagining Anne and her papa, "Pim" as sole survivors of "Het Achterhuis". Anne's diary expressed typical teenage clashes with her mother, jealousy of her grounded, beautiful sister Margot, but, "there is no one on earth who can make her feel as safe and loved as her papa".
Imagine Anne surviving typhus and waking up in a displaced person's camp and her amazement finding out that her beloved Pim, having survived as well, was living in Amsterdam. Both Pim and Anne must deal with ghosts and survivors guilt. Anne's guilt manifest's itself in an overpowering "fight or flight" reaction. Pim's attempt to protect Anne feeds into her angst and belligerence.
This reader tended to waffle between feeling that Anne's diary should remain her sole testament as compared to an eye opening, tragic, concentration camp experience, as imagined and based on historical documents and eyewitness accounts, followed by an imagined life as a displaced person. Anne would have lived with ghosts, horror and unimaginable darkness while trying to acclimate herself to life in post-war Amsterdam. What innermost thoughts and feelings would Anne now convey as a writer?
Thank you First to Read- Penguin Random House and David R. Gillham for the opportunity to read and review "Annelies".
January 26, 2019
What if Anne Frank had survived? What if she never died in a concentration camp and instead was reunited with her father and had to pick up the pieces left of her life? Having to deal with a life without her mother and sister. Her life as a writer seems like a pointless dream and her diary lost forever. How can she see forward when so much in her life is bleak and she has lost so much?
READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW OVER AT FRESH FICTION!
READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW OVER AT FRESH FICTION!
Read
April 21, 2019After seventy-eight pages, I give up. This isn't working for me.
January 10, 2019
I began reading this novel at virtually the same time my twelve year old daughter began reading Anne Frank’s Diary for the first time. How well I recall reading it myself, at around the same age, and the utter, disbelieving shock, when the writing was abruptly cut off…
This novel begins with Anne, Margot and her parents, before they went into hiding. We follow her story, while in the Annexe, after the arrest and then, when she returns. In reality, of course, only Otto Frank survived. Thankfully, Anne’s diary was saved and that is testament to the longings, emotions and feelings of a young girl whose words are a testament to not only her life, but to all those lives lost.
As such, although it was done respectfully, I tended to think of this not as Anne Frank, necessarily, but of others who were thrown back into life after the war. How were they supposed to go from the horrors of concentration camps, to returning to some kind of twisted reality? Loved ones gone, a community in tatters, and themselves so changed? It is here that this novel works best, as Anne tries to cope with life after the war, and her father attempts to keep his daughter close, while she has moved beyond his influence.
To me, this novel had a young adult feel and would be an interesting companion to the diary; highlighting the various emotions that survivors had to cope with – through anger, fear, confusion and guilt. I would rate this 3.5 if I could, but have rounded it up to 4.0. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.
This novel begins with Anne, Margot and her parents, before they went into hiding. We follow her story, while in the Annexe, after the arrest and then, when she returns. In reality, of course, only Otto Frank survived. Thankfully, Anne’s diary was saved and that is testament to the longings, emotions and feelings of a young girl whose words are a testament to not only her life, but to all those lives lost.
As such, although it was done respectfully, I tended to think of this not as Anne Frank, necessarily, but of others who were thrown back into life after the war. How were they supposed to go from the horrors of concentration camps, to returning to some kind of twisted reality? Loved ones gone, a community in tatters, and themselves so changed? It is here that this novel works best, as Anne tries to cope with life after the war, and her father attempts to keep his daughter close, while she has moved beyond his influence.
To me, this novel had a young adult feel and would be an interesting companion to the diary; highlighting the various emotions that survivors had to cope with – through anger, fear, confusion and guilt. I would rate this 3.5 if I could, but have rounded it up to 4.0. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.
March 22, 2019
First off, this book was sent to me by Viking. Thank you.
I am a big fan of speculative fiction and “What If” stories, so when the chance came to read this book I took it.
I have read Anne Frank’s diary many times, along with the additional writings, as well as the graphic novel adaptations. With the reading of Gilliam’s book I was able to reintegrate myself back into Anne’s world and see what could have been her possible future.
For me, this book actually increases the power and emotions I had when I first read Anne’s dirary years ago. “Annelise” should become required reading as a bookend to the Anne’s diary.
I am passing this book along to my niece. Years ago I gave her a copy of the diary, and this book will hopefully inspire her and maybe get her to read the diary again.
I am a big fan of speculative fiction and “What If” stories, so when the chance came to read this book I took it.
I have read Anne Frank’s diary many times, along with the additional writings, as well as the graphic novel adaptations. With the reading of Gilliam’s book I was able to reintegrate myself back into Anne’s world and see what could have been her possible future.
For me, this book actually increases the power and emotions I had when I first read Anne’s dirary years ago. “Annelise” should become required reading as a bookend to the Anne’s diary.
I am passing this book along to my niece. Years ago I gave her a copy of the diary, and this book will hopefully inspire her and maybe get her to read the diary again.
January 15, 2019
This is haunting and unflinching look at "what-if" Anne Frank had survived the war. And it is out today!
April 8, 2023
This is a historical fiction novel belonging to the category I call “What If?” books.
What if...
Annelies Marie Frank had not perished in a concentration camp in 1945? What would her life have been like if she had been liberated and reunited with her father?
Through extensive research and trips to places where Anne walked, including Amsterdam and former concentration camp sites, the author has “done his best to portray the historical backdrop against which the Franks lived with veracity and respect.” (Author’s Note) David Gillham goes on to explain that this story is not history; it is historical fiction based on his research and his understanding of Anne’s diary.
As in many cases when I have finished a wonderful book such as “Annelies”, I find it difficult to write a review that does it justice. The author states in his notes that, “In imagining a life for her had she survived, I hope to accomplish two things: to give Anne the life she was cheated of and, through telling the story of one girl, to tell the story of all the Annes, thereby underscoring the lost potential of the millions who perished and reminding us what we are missing in the world today because of their loss.”
I think Mr. Gillham quite definitely accomplished his purpose...I will be recommending this book to others every chance I get.
What if...
Annelies Marie Frank had not perished in a concentration camp in 1945? What would her life have been like if she had been liberated and reunited with her father?
Through extensive research and trips to places where Anne walked, including Amsterdam and former concentration camp sites, the author has “done his best to portray the historical backdrop against which the Franks lived with veracity and respect.” (Author’s Note) David Gillham goes on to explain that this story is not history; it is historical fiction based on his research and his understanding of Anne’s diary.
As in many cases when I have finished a wonderful book such as “Annelies”, I find it difficult to write a review that does it justice. The author states in his notes that, “In imagining a life for her had she survived, I hope to accomplish two things: to give Anne the life she was cheated of and, through telling the story of one girl, to tell the story of all the Annes, thereby underscoring the lost potential of the millions who perished and reminding us what we are missing in the world today because of their loss.”
I think Mr. Gillham quite definitely accomplished his purpose...I will be recommending this book to others every chance I get.
January 9, 2022
On December 11, 2018, I received an unexpected package in plain brown paper. I had no idea what was inside. I opened it to find a book with a beautiful, glowing orange and gold front cover adorned with a basketed bicycle in front of a canal with a pedestrian bridge in what appeared to be a European city. On the top was faint writing as if in a journal. The author looked familiar, but I had to google it before I remembered David Gillham was the author of The City of Women, a book I owned and remembered enjoying very much. But what was this book, Annelies and how is it I had received an “advance uncorrected proofs___not for sale” copy of it? I was flummoxed! I felt like I won a prize but I didn’t know what for. I turned the book to its back and read “A POWERFUL AND DEEPLY HUMANE NEW NOVEL THAT ASKS THE QUESTION: WHAT IF ANNE FRANK SURVIVED THE HOLOCAUST?”
However it happened to arrive, I was hooked. I began reading it right away. A few days later while perusing old emails, I came across one alerting me that I’d won a “giveaway” from Goodreads. I had no recall of entering it, but was grateful to have won and to have solved the puzzle of the perplexing package.
I approached reading Annelies with a great deal of my own personal baggage where Anne Frank, her diary and the Holocaust were concerned. The war in Germany ended on May 7, 1945. The Diary of a Young Girl was originally published on June 25, 1947. I was born on October 13, 1951. I don’t know for sure in what year I first read the Diary, but I think it must have been between 1961-1964, when I would have been between 9 and 13 years old, the same years I was attending after school, Hebrew School, 3 days a week, learning Jewish history, including the Holocaust, which was, in fact, very recent history. The Diary of Anne Frank had a profound effect on my young, impressionable, female, Jewish self. When I began my own diary, I can remember it was brown and had a lock and key and that I began each entry, as Anne had...Dear Kitty.
Reading Annelies by David Gillham also had a profound effect on me, throughout, but especially in the early chapters. Anne’s close relationship with her father, whom she called Pim, brought him into her room every night as Anne was saying her prayers. He sat and listened to her. I never before experienced the intense sensation of a book transporting me to a younger period of my life, me, as a child lying in bed at night...”now I lay me down to sleep, I pray my soul for god to keep, guide me and guard me through the night, so I shall wake up in sunshine bright”...”god bless mommy, god bless daddy” and so on down the line of every relative I could think of, lest I forget one and would have to start all over again. I didn’t just remember this; I experienced it as if it was happening.
It was an exhausting ritual which I performed for as long as I can remember. Reading Annelies made me wonder, when did I stop saying night time prayers? When did I stop saying prayers outside of the synagogue? When did I stop writing Dear Kitty? When did I, like Anne, lose my belief?
Francine Prose wrote a book, Anne Frank: The book, the life, the afterlife, which focuses on Anne Frank as an accomplished writer. Reference to this will again come up later in the review. I quote it because it resounds so deeply in my memory. Prose is quoted as saying:
“The diary had a huge effect on me when I was a kid, I was walking around in a state of grief all the time. It was so powerful. I read it and then I read it again and I read it again and I read it again.”
She was left with a profound fear that some day there would be a pounding on the front door of her house followed by men in high black boots storming in, to arrest her and her family.
I, like Francine Prose, became so very much aware of anti Semitism at a very young and innocent age, and I too became afraid that one day the nazis would come bursting into our house on Broad Street in Bloomfield, NJ and arrest us because we were Jews. In truth, I did not personally experience anti-semitism. But inside of me it felt as if I had or would.
David Gillham’s concept behind the novel interested me, but it also made me feel a bit uncomfortable. Did the author have the right to “play” with the legacy of Anne Frank, the same Anne Frank who was for so many of us the personification of the Holocaust? On the other hand, what a revelation to imagine what might have become of Anne Frank, had she survived. With this ambivalence, I dove into Annelies.
The book opens in Occupied Netherlands two years since the German invasion, at Merwedeplein 37 - The Frank family’s third story flat. In the first 55 pages, you get to meet the family, feel the growing tensions living as Jews in German occupied Amsterdam. You meet a young 12 year old Anne who is filled with life and herself. She complains to her older 16 year old sister, Margot, “I understand plenty, thank you very much. What I don’t understand is why grownups take such pleasure in chewing over the worst of the world like gristle”. There is a constant battle between Anne and her mother, “mummy”. But then there is her father, Pim, who is always there to come to Anne’s rescue. The girls still go to school, the “so-called, Jewish Lyceum” where Jewish children are forced to go. It is housed in a decaying building that stinks of moldering plumbing. There are rumors of families disappearing and others going into hiding. At this time you also meet the Frank’s Christian friends and co-workers, Miep and Bep, who along with a few others will go on to be the life support of the Frank family and the other families, while they are all in hiding together.
The next section of the book is The Achterhuis Prinsengracht 263 Rear Annex. The transition into hiding was expedited by the official notice the Franks received. “An order from Die Zentral-stelle für jüdische Auswanderung, under the stamp of the mof security police, a form letter from an SS-Hauptsturnführer, bearing the official rubber stamp, demanding that the Jewess Margot Betti Frank report for labor deployment inside the German Reich. The very next day, “the entire family has slipped off the map of Amsterdam and into the hiding place: the rear annex of Pim’s office building in the Prinsengracht.” Her “Achterhuis“ is what Anne will call it in her diary, “The House Behind.”
The next 20 pages or so are taken up with the family’s life in “the house behind”. The Diary of a Young Girl is approximately 283 pages. Before writing Annelies, David Gillham read and reread the diary as well as a wealth of sources including biographies of Anne Frank, Holocaust histories, transcripts of interviews and whatever he could get his hands on to better understand the life of Jews in Amsterdam during World War II. He travelled to Amsterdam twice and visited as many of Anne and her sister, Margot’s haunts, as he could. He tried to immerse himself into the Diary and the history and the life as it was experienced by the Frank family in order to stay as true as he could to Anne’s story, while using his imagination and literary skills to continue her story after the war until 1961.
The day they are discovered, the 4th of August,1944 was a hot, muggy day and the air in the “house behind” was stale, hard to breathe. Suddenly an SS sergeant and his Dutch detective cohorts burst into the house and take the Franks and the others out as if they are criminals. Walking out from two years in hiding into the summer brightness, feeling the warmth on her face so directly was such a surprise to Anne, that for an instant she had simply enjoyed the “Freedom of Sunlight”. Then she felt herself being loaded into the rear of a dark lorry.
The next section of the novel is entitled: Polizeiliches Judendurchgangslager
KAMP WESTERBORK
Drenthe Province
130 kilometers north of Amsterdam - Former Jewish refugee camp now under the control of the SS Security Police and SD.
These 20 pages or so, contain the brutality, filth, fear of the camp and then the transport from
WESTERBORK—AUSCHWITZ, where they are stuffed into a cattle car of murky darkness, “the communal act of breathing takes on the low-pitched rhythm of a bellows”, the stench of shit and vomit, the sobs and moans for three days. The final “selection” in Birkenau leaves Anne and Margot as orphans. After, a forced march on icy roads and then another transport in another putrid boxcar to another camp, Bergen-Belsen where they are left to starve and die with diseases of filth, lice, rats - typhus, dysentery, TB.
“No one is spared. The sick, the elderly, children, babies and pregnant women——all are marched to their death....
And all because they’re Jews.”
——Anne Frank
From her diary,
19 November 1942
Remember that when Anne wrote this in her diary, she had yet to experience any of this. She knew if it only through the intermittent BBC news the adults in the attic would listen to and/or the whispers she overheard coming from her parents and the other adults.
The second half of the novel is the story of Anne’s return to Amsterdam, to her father, Pip, to Miep, Bep and to “normal” life. But can there be normal life after experiencing such barbarity on a daily basis? It is this quandary that the book goes on to explore. Upon her return, Anne at 17 has lost her innocence, her Joie de Vivre, her optimism never more beautifully expressed than when she wrote in her diary years before, “In spite of everything, people are truly good at heart”. Pip, on the other hand, has chosen to put the past behind him and go on with living. The warmth and strong connection between Anne and her father has sadly faded. Pim yearns for the bright, optimistic daughter he remembers. Anne wants only her privacy and to be left alone. Their fraught situation constantly comes to a head, as demonstrated in the following confrontation:
“ What I want to say, her father tells her tremulously, what I think is important to say, is... He damply clears his throat. Grief. The word cracks as he speaks, but he clamped down on it with a frown. Grief he says is natural. But we cannot allow ourselves to be crushed by it. God has given us life Anne. For reasons that only he can understand.”
“Anne stands motionless, but she feels a rising boil inside. You think, she asks with a biting precision, it was God? Her father blinks. You think, she repeats, it was God who has given us life? Anne, her father tries to interrupt, but she won’t allow it. If it was God who has given us life, Pim, then where was he at Birkenau? She demands. Where was God at Bergen-Belsen?
Her father raises his palm as if to deflect her words. Anneke! Anne continues, The only thing God has given us, PIM, is death. She feels the horror erupt inside her. God has given us the gas chambers. God has given us the crematoria. Those are gods gift to us, PIM. And this, she declares exposing her forearm in the mirror’s reflection. This is his mark. The indelible blue defilement stains her forearm. A -25063. The number that replaced her name.
Her father’s reply: “ Yes, Annelies he says, it is impossible to believe that God has chosen life for us. Chosen you and me among so many others who died. It is utterly impossible to comprehend, yet that is precisely what we must believe, he tells her, if we are to survive. Silence is all Anne can offer him.”
I think the author chose these words between Anne and her father to represent the larger questions that survivors (and Jews in general) are left with since and in light of the Holocaust.
I keep asking myself, if in fact Anne had survived, would the relationship between her and her father have taken the harsh conflicting tone that it did in the novel? It’s a question I would like to ask Mr. Gillham. Why did he need the relationship between Anne and Pip to be the contentious one he created? Was it to move the plot of the story along or did he believe that it was the most likely way he could imagine it would have had to have been?
Another question I have for the author is, in response to an article I read in the online magazine, The Forward, entitled,
**Why Are Men So Obsessed With Resurrecting Anne Frank? By Talya Zax
December 16, 2018
Talya Zax contends that “The idea of Anne Frank surviving has been done, frankly, to death. But why? And why, almost always, by men?” She uses David Gillham and Annelies as an example, as well as Phillip Roth’s The Ghost Writer, Shalom Auslander’s Hope: A Tragedy, some movies, etc.
I think the main point of the article is that the emphasis when writing about Anne Frank should be about the beautiful, elegant, poignant writing displayed in this one diary as opposed to what is always the point made by these male authors that the diary has become the quintessential definition of the experience of the Holocaust; this despite the fact that her knowledge of the crimes of the Holocaust were from the radio, newspapers, what she overheard from the adults and her view from the annex window. Her direct experience in the camps was not chronicled by Anne. Yet, Anne Frank demonstrates through her writing a profound comprehension of anti-Semitism, way beyond her years. Her writing allows the reader to be there in the annex. It invites other teenagers (and adults) to experience the angst she felt in relation to Peter van Pels, the slightly older teenage boy who, with his parents also live in the annex.
Anne shows herself to be a budding feminist: “Of the many questions that have often bothered me is why women have been, and still are, thought to be so inferior to men,” she wrote on June 13, 1944, two months before the Nazis would invade the secret annex. “It’s easy to say it’s unfair, but that’s not enough for me; I’d really like to know the reason for this great injustice!” Talya Zax uses Francine Prose’s writings about Anne Frank to further illuminate Anne’s brilliance as a writer.
In the final analysis, I cannot speak to the other works mentioned in Zax’ article
because I did not read them. I did, however read Annelies. I do not agree with Talya Zax’ criticism of David Gillham. Gillham did give credit to Frank as a writer, an author and as a thinker, perhaps not to the extent that Zax would have liked, but it’s there all the same. Zax criticizes Gillham for portraying Frank’s diary as a product of adolescent angst, as if that’s somehow belittling Anne’s writing. Indeed adolescent angst, as I alluded to previously, was a significant part of her life in the annex and was thus appropriate for her, as a young teenager to write about in the diary. And finally, Zax making the point that it’s men who are “So Obsessed With Resurrecting Anne Frank”, thereby suggesting their inability to see Anne’s value as a female. In the case of Gillham, I would again disagree. I read carefully the Acknowledgements at the end of the book. I was impressed and heartened that the overwhelming majority of Gillham’s associates in writing the book were women: his agent-a woman, his editor-a woman, Viking’s editor-in-chief-a woman, his copy editor-a woman. And so it went.
Suffice it to say that of the 40 or so names he acknowledged, appreciated and thanked, there were only about 10 who were not women. That says to me that women played a large part in the writing of the book and in his life. It is clear that he feels indebted to them. I suspect that had Gilham demonstrated in his writing a lack of sensitivity to Anne Frank as a human being, a writer or a young independent woman, these women would have picked up on it and called him out. They didn’t because he did.
Writing this review of Annelies by David Gillham took me longer and was more difficult than any review I’ve ever attempted to write. Was it because of the subject matter? Was it because of the effect it had on me? After all, I have read a wealth of books previously about the Holocaust, about the brutality and the toll it took on the survivors and on the psyche of the Jewish people. Was it because of the ambivalence I felt about the validity of writing this particular story and about Zax’ article? Was it because of the powerful grip the book had on me to relive my much younger self? Was it because this review is so, so long?
Was it all of these things, none of them or something else entirely? I am really not certain. All I can say is that I finished reading Annelies on December 26 and it is now January 19 and I’ve been writing this review on and off for all of these 24 days. I guess the important thing is, it’s been a labor of love.
**https://forward.com/culture/books/416...
However it happened to arrive, I was hooked. I began reading it right away. A few days later while perusing old emails, I came across one alerting me that I’d won a “giveaway” from Goodreads. I had no recall of entering it, but was grateful to have won and to have solved the puzzle of the perplexing package.
I approached reading Annelies with a great deal of my own personal baggage where Anne Frank, her diary and the Holocaust were concerned. The war in Germany ended on May 7, 1945. The Diary of a Young Girl was originally published on June 25, 1947. I was born on October 13, 1951. I don’t know for sure in what year I first read the Diary, but I think it must have been between 1961-1964, when I would have been between 9 and 13 years old, the same years I was attending after school, Hebrew School, 3 days a week, learning Jewish history, including the Holocaust, which was, in fact, very recent history. The Diary of Anne Frank had a profound effect on my young, impressionable, female, Jewish self. When I began my own diary, I can remember it was brown and had a lock and key and that I began each entry, as Anne had...Dear Kitty.
Reading Annelies by David Gillham also had a profound effect on me, throughout, but especially in the early chapters. Anne’s close relationship with her father, whom she called Pim, brought him into her room every night as Anne was saying her prayers. He sat and listened to her. I never before experienced the intense sensation of a book transporting me to a younger period of my life, me, as a child lying in bed at night...”now I lay me down to sleep, I pray my soul for god to keep, guide me and guard me through the night, so I shall wake up in sunshine bright”...”god bless mommy, god bless daddy” and so on down the line of every relative I could think of, lest I forget one and would have to start all over again. I didn’t just remember this; I experienced it as if it was happening.
It was an exhausting ritual which I performed for as long as I can remember. Reading Annelies made me wonder, when did I stop saying night time prayers? When did I stop saying prayers outside of the synagogue? When did I stop writing Dear Kitty? When did I, like Anne, lose my belief?
Francine Prose wrote a book, Anne Frank: The book, the life, the afterlife, which focuses on Anne Frank as an accomplished writer. Reference to this will again come up later in the review. I quote it because it resounds so deeply in my memory. Prose is quoted as saying:
“The diary had a huge effect on me when I was a kid, I was walking around in a state of grief all the time. It was so powerful. I read it and then I read it again and I read it again and I read it again.”
She was left with a profound fear that some day there would be a pounding on the front door of her house followed by men in high black boots storming in, to arrest her and her family.
I, like Francine Prose, became so very much aware of anti Semitism at a very young and innocent age, and I too became afraid that one day the nazis would come bursting into our house on Broad Street in Bloomfield, NJ and arrest us because we were Jews. In truth, I did not personally experience anti-semitism. But inside of me it felt as if I had or would.
David Gillham’s concept behind the novel interested me, but it also made me feel a bit uncomfortable. Did the author have the right to “play” with the legacy of Anne Frank, the same Anne Frank who was for so many of us the personification of the Holocaust? On the other hand, what a revelation to imagine what might have become of Anne Frank, had she survived. With this ambivalence, I dove into Annelies.
The book opens in Occupied Netherlands two years since the German invasion, at Merwedeplein 37 - The Frank family’s third story flat. In the first 55 pages, you get to meet the family, feel the growing tensions living as Jews in German occupied Amsterdam. You meet a young 12 year old Anne who is filled with life and herself. She complains to her older 16 year old sister, Margot, “I understand plenty, thank you very much. What I don’t understand is why grownups take such pleasure in chewing over the worst of the world like gristle”. There is a constant battle between Anne and her mother, “mummy”. But then there is her father, Pim, who is always there to come to Anne’s rescue. The girls still go to school, the “so-called, Jewish Lyceum” where Jewish children are forced to go. It is housed in a decaying building that stinks of moldering plumbing. There are rumors of families disappearing and others going into hiding. At this time you also meet the Frank’s Christian friends and co-workers, Miep and Bep, who along with a few others will go on to be the life support of the Frank family and the other families, while they are all in hiding together.
The next section of the book is The Achterhuis Prinsengracht 263 Rear Annex. The transition into hiding was expedited by the official notice the Franks received. “An order from Die Zentral-stelle für jüdische Auswanderung, under the stamp of the mof security police, a form letter from an SS-Hauptsturnführer, bearing the official rubber stamp, demanding that the Jewess Margot Betti Frank report for labor deployment inside the German Reich. The very next day, “the entire family has slipped off the map of Amsterdam and into the hiding place: the rear annex of Pim’s office building in the Prinsengracht.” Her “Achterhuis“ is what Anne will call it in her diary, “The House Behind.”
The next 20 pages or so are taken up with the family’s life in “the house behind”. The Diary of a Young Girl is approximately 283 pages. Before writing Annelies, David Gillham read and reread the diary as well as a wealth of sources including biographies of Anne Frank, Holocaust histories, transcripts of interviews and whatever he could get his hands on to better understand the life of Jews in Amsterdam during World War II. He travelled to Amsterdam twice and visited as many of Anne and her sister, Margot’s haunts, as he could. He tried to immerse himself into the Diary and the history and the life as it was experienced by the Frank family in order to stay as true as he could to Anne’s story, while using his imagination and literary skills to continue her story after the war until 1961.
The day they are discovered, the 4th of August,1944 was a hot, muggy day and the air in the “house behind” was stale, hard to breathe. Suddenly an SS sergeant and his Dutch detective cohorts burst into the house and take the Franks and the others out as if they are criminals. Walking out from two years in hiding into the summer brightness, feeling the warmth on her face so directly was such a surprise to Anne, that for an instant she had simply enjoyed the “Freedom of Sunlight”. Then she felt herself being loaded into the rear of a dark lorry.
The next section of the novel is entitled: Polizeiliches Judendurchgangslager
KAMP WESTERBORK
Drenthe Province
130 kilometers north of Amsterdam - Former Jewish refugee camp now under the control of the SS Security Police and SD.
These 20 pages or so, contain the brutality, filth, fear of the camp and then the transport from
WESTERBORK—AUSCHWITZ, where they are stuffed into a cattle car of murky darkness, “the communal act of breathing takes on the low-pitched rhythm of a bellows”, the stench of shit and vomit, the sobs and moans for three days. The final “selection” in Birkenau leaves Anne and Margot as orphans. After, a forced march on icy roads and then another transport in another putrid boxcar to another camp, Bergen-Belsen where they are left to starve and die with diseases of filth, lice, rats - typhus, dysentery, TB.
“No one is spared. The sick, the elderly, children, babies and pregnant women——all are marched to their death....
And all because they’re Jews.”
——Anne Frank
From her diary,
19 November 1942
Remember that when Anne wrote this in her diary, she had yet to experience any of this. She knew if it only through the intermittent BBC news the adults in the attic would listen to and/or the whispers she overheard coming from her parents and the other adults.
The second half of the novel is the story of Anne’s return to Amsterdam, to her father, Pip, to Miep, Bep and to “normal” life. But can there be normal life after experiencing such barbarity on a daily basis? It is this quandary that the book goes on to explore. Upon her return, Anne at 17 has lost her innocence, her Joie de Vivre, her optimism never more beautifully expressed than when she wrote in her diary years before, “In spite of everything, people are truly good at heart”. Pip, on the other hand, has chosen to put the past behind him and go on with living. The warmth and strong connection between Anne and her father has sadly faded. Pim yearns for the bright, optimistic daughter he remembers. Anne wants only her privacy and to be left alone. Their fraught situation constantly comes to a head, as demonstrated in the following confrontation:
“ What I want to say, her father tells her tremulously, what I think is important to say, is... He damply clears his throat. Grief. The word cracks as he speaks, but he clamped down on it with a frown. Grief he says is natural. But we cannot allow ourselves to be crushed by it. God has given us life Anne. For reasons that only he can understand.”
“Anne stands motionless, but she feels a rising boil inside. You think, she asks with a biting precision, it was God? Her father blinks. You think, she repeats, it was God who has given us life? Anne, her father tries to interrupt, but she won’t allow it. If it was God who has given us life, Pim, then where was he at Birkenau? She demands. Where was God at Bergen-Belsen?
Her father raises his palm as if to deflect her words. Anneke! Anne continues, The only thing God has given us, PIM, is death. She feels the horror erupt inside her. God has given us the gas chambers. God has given us the crematoria. Those are gods gift to us, PIM. And this, she declares exposing her forearm in the mirror’s reflection. This is his mark. The indelible blue defilement stains her forearm. A -25063. The number that replaced her name.
Her father’s reply: “ Yes, Annelies he says, it is impossible to believe that God has chosen life for us. Chosen you and me among so many others who died. It is utterly impossible to comprehend, yet that is precisely what we must believe, he tells her, if we are to survive. Silence is all Anne can offer him.”
I think the author chose these words between Anne and her father to represent the larger questions that survivors (and Jews in general) are left with since and in light of the Holocaust.
I keep asking myself, if in fact Anne had survived, would the relationship between her and her father have taken the harsh conflicting tone that it did in the novel? It’s a question I would like to ask Mr. Gillham. Why did he need the relationship between Anne and Pip to be the contentious one he created? Was it to move the plot of the story along or did he believe that it was the most likely way he could imagine it would have had to have been?
Another question I have for the author is, in response to an article I read in the online magazine, The Forward, entitled,
**Why Are Men So Obsessed With Resurrecting Anne Frank? By Talya Zax
December 16, 2018
Talya Zax contends that “The idea of Anne Frank surviving has been done, frankly, to death. But why? And why, almost always, by men?” She uses David Gillham and Annelies as an example, as well as Phillip Roth’s The Ghost Writer, Shalom Auslander’s Hope: A Tragedy, some movies, etc.
I think the main point of the article is that the emphasis when writing about Anne Frank should be about the beautiful, elegant, poignant writing displayed in this one diary as opposed to what is always the point made by these male authors that the diary has become the quintessential definition of the experience of the Holocaust; this despite the fact that her knowledge of the crimes of the Holocaust were from the radio, newspapers, what she overheard from the adults and her view from the annex window. Her direct experience in the camps was not chronicled by Anne. Yet, Anne Frank demonstrates through her writing a profound comprehension of anti-Semitism, way beyond her years. Her writing allows the reader to be there in the annex. It invites other teenagers (and adults) to experience the angst she felt in relation to Peter van Pels, the slightly older teenage boy who, with his parents also live in the annex.
Anne shows herself to be a budding feminist: “Of the many questions that have often bothered me is why women have been, and still are, thought to be so inferior to men,” she wrote on June 13, 1944, two months before the Nazis would invade the secret annex. “It’s easy to say it’s unfair, but that’s not enough for me; I’d really like to know the reason for this great injustice!” Talya Zax uses Francine Prose’s writings about Anne Frank to further illuminate Anne’s brilliance as a writer.
In the final analysis, I cannot speak to the other works mentioned in Zax’ article
because I did not read them. I did, however read Annelies. I do not agree with Talya Zax’ criticism of David Gillham. Gillham did give credit to Frank as a writer, an author and as a thinker, perhaps not to the extent that Zax would have liked, but it’s there all the same. Zax criticizes Gillham for portraying Frank’s diary as a product of adolescent angst, as if that’s somehow belittling Anne’s writing. Indeed adolescent angst, as I alluded to previously, was a significant part of her life in the annex and was thus appropriate for her, as a young teenager to write about in the diary. And finally, Zax making the point that it’s men who are “So Obsessed With Resurrecting Anne Frank”, thereby suggesting their inability to see Anne’s value as a female. In the case of Gillham, I would again disagree. I read carefully the Acknowledgements at the end of the book. I was impressed and heartened that the overwhelming majority of Gillham’s associates in writing the book were women: his agent-a woman, his editor-a woman, Viking’s editor-in-chief-a woman, his copy editor-a woman. And so it went.
Suffice it to say that of the 40 or so names he acknowledged, appreciated and thanked, there were only about 10 who were not women. That says to me that women played a large part in the writing of the book and in his life. It is clear that he feels indebted to them. I suspect that had Gilham demonstrated in his writing a lack of sensitivity to Anne Frank as a human being, a writer or a young independent woman, these women would have picked up on it and called him out. They didn’t because he did.
Writing this review of Annelies by David Gillham took me longer and was more difficult than any review I’ve ever attempted to write. Was it because of the subject matter? Was it because of the effect it had on me? After all, I have read a wealth of books previously about the Holocaust, about the brutality and the toll it took on the survivors and on the psyche of the Jewish people. Was it because of the ambivalence I felt about the validity of writing this particular story and about Zax’ article? Was it because of the powerful grip the book had on me to relive my much younger self? Was it because this review is so, so long?
Was it all of these things, none of them or something else entirely? I am really not certain. All I can say is that I finished reading Annelies on December 26 and it is now January 19 and I’ve been writing this review on and off for all of these 24 days. I guess the important thing is, it’s been a labor of love.
**https://forward.com/culture/books/416...
December 17, 2018
"The red tartan daybook. She smiles as she opens it and runs her fingers across the creamy vellum pages. A confidante. That is what she intends her diary to become. Her one true confidante, from whom she will hide nothing." *
My introduction to the Holocaust was reading The Diary of Anne Frank in elementary school. Readers are spared the horrors of the concentration camps but we learn after reading this young girl's hopeful and optimistic words that her family was discovered after two years in their hiding place, the secret annex, and Anne died in Bergen-Belsen.
Later, in middle school, we studied the Holocaust further and my mind could not fathom how this event happened in the same century in which I was born, let alone only four decades before.
"Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I've never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old school girl."
-Anne Frank, from her diary, 20 June 1942
Anne Frank's diary became an enduring legacy: a lesson not only in history but in life from an unexpected source: an optimistic young girl who never gave up hope despite the cruel, unexplainable hatred and danger that threatened her daily.
David R. Gillham has taken what we know about Anne Frank based on accounts of people who knew her and her own diary and posed the question: What would have happened to Anne if she had surived the concentration camp?
Annelies begins with precocious Anne living without a care in the world dreaming of traveling the world, fame, and her upcoming birthday party. Anne is frustrated by her mother's constant worry and her sister Margot's superior attitude since turning sixteen. The war is a looming shadow held at bay by her parents who discuss news and plans at night once Anne and Margot are in bed.
"What I don't understand is why grown-ups take such pleasure in chewing over the worst of the world like gristle." *
Readers briefly follow the Franks into hiding where Anne depends on her diary to relieve boredom and also share thoughts she cannot speak about with the people she is living in close quarters with.
Anne is often critical of her mother because they do not see eye to eye on most things. Anne enjoys disagreeing just to get a rise out of her and is frustrated by what she seems to believe is her mother's weak personality.
Anne relies on her father, Pim, as a source of comfort and protection and feels safe as long as he is making decisions for the family.
Inevitably, the Franks and their friends are found in the secret annex and separated before being sent to concentration camps.
With Pim gone, Anne's mother rises up to take care of her girls.
"But instead of their mother's collapsing in despair, all of her fragilities had simply fallen away. She became a lioness, protecting and caring for her girls, even as starvation and exhaustion racked her body. Anne was shocked at the pride she felt for her mother. And the love." *
Margot and Anne are transferred to Bergen-Belsen while their mother remains in Auschwitz where she dies of starvation.
Margot dies in Bergen-Belsen of typhus and here is where history takes a turn: Anne survives and returns to the liberated Netherlands where she finds that astonishingly Pim has survived as well.
The once optimistic and cheerful Anne is lost. She feels anger that her father was unable to protect his wife and daughters, she feels guilty because she survived but her mother and sister died, and she is haunted in her search for the reason she survived when so many did not.
She grieves the loss of her family and also the diary she kept while in hiding.
"'When we were in hiding, you remember, I had my diary,' she says, 'I know everybody thought it was a silly thing. Just childish doodling. But to me it was so important. It was all I had that was truly mine.'" *
Anne struggles to find her purpose and her identity after the war:
"She walks the streets still conscious of an invisible star sewn to her breast, even if it never shows up in a mirror." *
____________
"She knows that she has no identity beyond the number imprinted on her arm." *
While Anne cannot move on, she has to learn to accept that Pim has:
"But I must try to find happiness again, and so must you. Otherwise what is the point of having survived? What is the point of living if we are to be poisoned by our own sorrow?" *
For Pim, moving on includes remarrying, which devastates Anne who wants to remain fiercely loyal to her mother who she didn't fully accept or understand until she died.
It isn't until Anne is reunited with her diary that she begins to heal:
"Reading, she finds the ghosts of her dead still living on the page. All of them caricatured in ink. Dissected by her pen. Sometimes she can hear their voices in what she has written so clearly. It warms her and terrifies her, raising the dead." *
Anne decides she will publish her diary as a tribute not only to her lossed loved ones, but to the girl she once was before suffering claimed her.
"The real truth is, I'm weak. I am weak and frightened. And my so-called writing? All these pages? All the words? I'm not sure I can recognize myself in them any longer. The me I read about in my diary feels like a stranger. She can be frightened sometimes, and full of anxieties, yes, and childishly dramatic. But she's also sometimes so confident, so strong, so determined. So full of hope. I'm only a pale reflection of her now." *
This piece of historical fiction/alternative history absolutely wrecked me.
While most people have read about Anne Frank and allowed themselves to wonder what would've happened to her if her life hadn't been cut tragically short, David R. Gillham's answer to that haunting question is just as emotional as her death.
I am extremely grateful to Viking and Edelweiss for providing me with a DRC in exchange for my honest review. Annelies is scheduled for release on January 15, 2019.
*Quotes included are from an advance readers copy and are subject to change upon final publication.
For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
My introduction to the Holocaust was reading The Diary of Anne Frank in elementary school. Readers are spared the horrors of the concentration camps but we learn after reading this young girl's hopeful and optimistic words that her family was discovered after two years in their hiding place, the secret annex, and Anne died in Bergen-Belsen.
Later, in middle school, we studied the Holocaust further and my mind could not fathom how this event happened in the same century in which I was born, let alone only four decades before.
"Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I've never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old school girl."
-Anne Frank, from her diary, 20 June 1942
Anne Frank's diary became an enduring legacy: a lesson not only in history but in life from an unexpected source: an optimistic young girl who never gave up hope despite the cruel, unexplainable hatred and danger that threatened her daily.
David R. Gillham has taken what we know about Anne Frank based on accounts of people who knew her and her own diary and posed the question: What would have happened to Anne if she had surived the concentration camp?
Annelies begins with precocious Anne living without a care in the world dreaming of traveling the world, fame, and her upcoming birthday party. Anne is frustrated by her mother's constant worry and her sister Margot's superior attitude since turning sixteen. The war is a looming shadow held at bay by her parents who discuss news and plans at night once Anne and Margot are in bed.
"What I don't understand is why grown-ups take such pleasure in chewing over the worst of the world like gristle." *
Readers briefly follow the Franks into hiding where Anne depends on her diary to relieve boredom and also share thoughts she cannot speak about with the people she is living in close quarters with.
Anne is often critical of her mother because they do not see eye to eye on most things. Anne enjoys disagreeing just to get a rise out of her and is frustrated by what she seems to believe is her mother's weak personality.
Anne relies on her father, Pim, as a source of comfort and protection and feels safe as long as he is making decisions for the family.
Inevitably, the Franks and their friends are found in the secret annex and separated before being sent to concentration camps.
With Pim gone, Anne's mother rises up to take care of her girls.
"But instead of their mother's collapsing in despair, all of her fragilities had simply fallen away. She became a lioness, protecting and caring for her girls, even as starvation and exhaustion racked her body. Anne was shocked at the pride she felt for her mother. And the love." *
Margot and Anne are transferred to Bergen-Belsen while their mother remains in Auschwitz where she dies of starvation.
Margot dies in Bergen-Belsen of typhus and here is where history takes a turn: Anne survives and returns to the liberated Netherlands where she finds that astonishingly Pim has survived as well.
The once optimistic and cheerful Anne is lost. She feels anger that her father was unable to protect his wife and daughters, she feels guilty because she survived but her mother and sister died, and she is haunted in her search for the reason she survived when so many did not.
She grieves the loss of her family and also the diary she kept while in hiding.
"'When we were in hiding, you remember, I had my diary,' she says, 'I know everybody thought it was a silly thing. Just childish doodling. But to me it was so important. It was all I had that was truly mine.'" *
Anne struggles to find her purpose and her identity after the war:
"She walks the streets still conscious of an invisible star sewn to her breast, even if it never shows up in a mirror." *
____________
"She knows that she has no identity beyond the number imprinted on her arm." *
While Anne cannot move on, she has to learn to accept that Pim has:
"But I must try to find happiness again, and so must you. Otherwise what is the point of having survived? What is the point of living if we are to be poisoned by our own sorrow?" *
For Pim, moving on includes remarrying, which devastates Anne who wants to remain fiercely loyal to her mother who she didn't fully accept or understand until she died.
It isn't until Anne is reunited with her diary that she begins to heal:
"Reading, she finds the ghosts of her dead still living on the page. All of them caricatured in ink. Dissected by her pen. Sometimes she can hear their voices in what she has written so clearly. It warms her and terrifies her, raising the dead." *
Anne decides she will publish her diary as a tribute not only to her lossed loved ones, but to the girl she once was before suffering claimed her.
"The real truth is, I'm weak. I am weak and frightened. And my so-called writing? All these pages? All the words? I'm not sure I can recognize myself in them any longer. The me I read about in my diary feels like a stranger. She can be frightened sometimes, and full of anxieties, yes, and childishly dramatic. But she's also sometimes so confident, so strong, so determined. So full of hope. I'm only a pale reflection of her now." *
This piece of historical fiction/alternative history absolutely wrecked me.
While most people have read about Anne Frank and allowed themselves to wonder what would've happened to her if her life hadn't been cut tragically short, David R. Gillham's answer to that haunting question is just as emotional as her death.
I am extremely grateful to Viking and Edelweiss for providing me with a DRC in exchange for my honest review. Annelies is scheduled for release on January 15, 2019.
*Quotes included are from an advance readers copy and are subject to change upon final publication.
For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
September 8, 2023
“Hubo una vez en que creyó que convertirse en escritora la haría famosa, que viajaría a las diferentes capitales del mundo y que la adorarían. Ahora sabe que ese futuro no es más que una fantasía.
Jamás la adorarán. Su historia está demasiado envenenada de dolor y de muerte. ¿Quién podría tolerar leerla?”
𝙿𝚄𝙽𝚃𝚄𝙰𝙲𝙸𝙾́𝙽
★★★★★ / 𝟻
🌸 ¡Hola lectores! (●’◡’●)ﾉ
Hoy les traigo una nueva reseña. Se trata de “Ana Frank. ¿Qué habría pasado si hubiera sobrevivido al holocausto?” por David R. Gillham.
¿Lo han leído? ¿Lo conocen?
𝐋𝐨 𝐪𝐮𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐝𝐫𝐚́𝐬 𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞
🔹 Novela ficción-histórica
🔹 Segunda Guerra Mundial
🔹 1942-1944-1945-1946-1961
🔹 Ataques de pánico, culpa, ira, resentimiento
𝐎𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐨́𝐧 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥
Este libro ha sido maravilloso. A pesar de que la mayor parte es ficción porque Ana no sobrevivió al Holocausto, me parece que el autor hizo un increíble trabajo investigando muy bien a Ana Frank y su mundo. No por nada, pasó 6 años investigando y consultando todo el material disponible sobre ellos.
Esta historia me hizo sentir mucho, sobre todo ira, resentimiento y culpa, específicamente porque eso es lo que siente Ana durante gran parte del libro después de haber sobrevivido al Holocausto y la forma de escribir del autor hizo que eso se trasmitiera muy bien. Me hizo ponerme en los zapatos de Ana. Todos sus traumas, el hambre, el dolor, el miedo, el trabajo forzado, sus pesadillas, su culpa, sus ataques de ansiedad, el haber perdido a su mamá, ver morir a su hermana… y tener que vivir con eso después no fue para nada fácil.
“𝘌𝘴 𝘭𝘢 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘥𝘢 𝘥𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘳 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘴. 𝘌𝘴𝘦 𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘶 ú𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘰: 𝘴𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘴𝘢𝘳 𝘥𝘦 𝘭𝘰 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘴𝘵ó”
En la vida real, solo Otto Frank, su padre, sobrevivió pero en este libro la historia cambia para que Ana también sobreviviera. ¿Qué habría pasado en la vida de Otto? ¿Habría seguido el mismo camino? ¿Se habría vuelto a casar? ¿El Diario de Ana Frank, realmente se habría publicado al mundo o no?
La relación con su padre, Pim, como lo llamaban sus hijas, es uno de los temas importantes que abarca este libro. Mientras que antes Ana era muy cercana con su papá (mucho más que con su mamá), después del holocausto su relación se encuentra en la cuerda floja. La Ana alegre, coqueta, soñadora, llena de positivismo y esperanza murió en ese campo de concentración y su padre no sabe qué hacer con esta hija, llena de ira que no puede dejar el pasado atrás y que lastimosamente, se vuelve muy rencorosa con él.
¿Lo recomiendo? Definitivamente, pero es un libro duro de leer. Si recomiendo leerse primero “El Diario de Ana Frank” para que puedan tener más contexto, que conozcan no solo a la familia Frank, sino también a las otras personas que estuvieron con ellos en la Casa de Atrás (refugio) y a quienes los ayudaron a esconderse.
¿Lo leerían?
Jamás la adorarán. Su historia está demasiado envenenada de dolor y de muerte. ¿Quién podría tolerar leerla?”
𝙿𝚄𝙽𝚃𝚄𝙰𝙲𝙸𝙾́𝙽
★★★★★ / 𝟻
🌸 ¡Hola lectores! (●’◡’●)ﾉ
Hoy les traigo una nueva reseña. Se trata de “Ana Frank. ¿Qué habría pasado si hubiera sobrevivido al holocausto?” por David R. Gillham.
¿Lo han leído? ¿Lo conocen?
𝐋𝐨 𝐪𝐮𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐝𝐫𝐚́𝐬 𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞
🔹 Novela ficción-histórica
🔹 Segunda Guerra Mundial
🔹 1942-1944-1945-1946-1961
🔹 Ataques de pánico, culpa, ira, resentimiento
𝐎𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐨́𝐧 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥
Este libro ha sido maravilloso. A pesar de que la mayor parte es ficción porque Ana no sobrevivió al Holocausto, me parece que el autor hizo un increíble trabajo investigando muy bien a Ana Frank y su mundo. No por nada, pasó 6 años investigando y consultando todo el material disponible sobre ellos.
Esta historia me hizo sentir mucho, sobre todo ira, resentimiento y culpa, específicamente porque eso es lo que siente Ana durante gran parte del libro después de haber sobrevivido al Holocausto y la forma de escribir del autor hizo que eso se trasmitiera muy bien. Me hizo ponerme en los zapatos de Ana. Todos sus traumas, el hambre, el dolor, el miedo, el trabajo forzado, sus pesadillas, su culpa, sus ataques de ansiedad, el haber perdido a su mamá, ver morir a su hermana… y tener que vivir con eso después no fue para nada fácil.
“𝘌𝘴 𝘭𝘢 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘥𝘢 𝘥𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘳 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘴. 𝘌𝘴𝘦 𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘶 ú𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘰: 𝘴𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘴𝘢𝘳 𝘥𝘦 𝘭𝘰 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘴𝘵ó”
En la vida real, solo Otto Frank, su padre, sobrevivió pero en este libro la historia cambia para que Ana también sobreviviera. ¿Qué habría pasado en la vida de Otto? ¿Habría seguido el mismo camino? ¿Se habría vuelto a casar? ¿El Diario de Ana Frank, realmente se habría publicado al mundo o no?
La relación con su padre, Pim, como lo llamaban sus hijas, es uno de los temas importantes que abarca este libro. Mientras que antes Ana era muy cercana con su papá (mucho más que con su mamá), después del holocausto su relación se encuentra en la cuerda floja. La Ana alegre, coqueta, soñadora, llena de positivismo y esperanza murió en ese campo de concentración y su padre no sabe qué hacer con esta hija, llena de ira que no puede dejar el pasado atrás y que lastimosamente, se vuelve muy rencorosa con él.
¿Lo recomiendo? Definitivamente, pero es un libro duro de leer. Si recomiendo leerse primero “El Diario de Ana Frank” para que puedan tener más contexto, que conozcan no solo a la familia Frank, sino también a las otras personas que estuvieron con ellos en la Casa de Atrás (refugio) y a quienes los ayudaron a esconderse.
¿Lo leerían?
December 22, 2018
Thanks to the publisher, via Netgalley, for an advance e-galley for honest review.
I honestly have no idea how to rate and review this book. I feel really conflicted about this story. I think Gillham made a really interesting, impactful, unnerving choice in the way he portrayed a version of Anne Frank that survived the war, and what her personality and opinions might have been like had she survived, and the ways in which the horrors she experienced impact every part of her life. This book is, appropriately, difficult to read at times as the author details what Anne Frank may have experienced at the hands of the Nazis, and I think that the historical detail in what life was like in Amsterdam in the immediate shadow of the war was well done, and not something I've read about extensively in historical fiction. The ways in which Anne Frank's "character" in this book acts post war is fittingly angry and dissatisfied, both for what she's experienced and her age.
Usually I don't have a problem with using historical figures in fiction- I often really enjoy books that examine the lives of women throughout history. But something about this one didn't always feel "right" to me, and I can't totally put my finger on what troubled me about this choice.
I honestly have no idea how to rate and review this book. I feel really conflicted about this story. I think Gillham made a really interesting, impactful, unnerving choice in the way he portrayed a version of Anne Frank that survived the war, and what her personality and opinions might have been like had she survived, and the ways in which the horrors she experienced impact every part of her life. This book is, appropriately, difficult to read at times as the author details what Anne Frank may have experienced at the hands of the Nazis, and I think that the historical detail in what life was like in Amsterdam in the immediate shadow of the war was well done, and not something I've read about extensively in historical fiction. The ways in which Anne Frank's "character" in this book acts post war is fittingly angry and dissatisfied, both for what she's experienced and her age.
Usually I don't have a problem with using historical figures in fiction- I often really enjoy books that examine the lives of women throughout history. But something about this one didn't always feel "right" to me, and I can't totally put my finger on what troubled me about this choice.
March 31, 2020
A ver....este libro es una ficción mas ficción que nunca porque todos sabemos lo que lamentablemente pasó con Ana Frank, pero la verdad que a mi me gustó encontrarme con esa posibilidad.
El Diario de Ana Frank es un libro que leí 1000 veces y seguramente lo seguiré leyendo un montón de veces más, creo que cumplió perfectamente el objetivo de Ana de seguir viva mas allá de la muerte, por eso yo disfrute de esta posibilidad que la ficción nos da, de un poco mas de vida.
El Diario de Ana Frank es un libro que leí 1000 veces y seguramente lo seguiré leyendo un montón de veces más, creo que cumplió perfectamente el objetivo de Ana de seguir viva mas allá de la muerte, por eso yo disfrute de esta posibilidad que la ficción nos da, de un poco mas de vida.
April 21, 2020
Back in February 2017, I had the honour of visiting the Anne Frank Huis in Amsterdam. I have been aware of Anne's story ever since I can remember; indeed, one of my first reading memories is of encountering her biography in a written-for-children format at school, and sobbing. Since I was old enough to read her diary in its entirety, I have done so every couple of years without fail, and am always moved to tears.
I was a little wary of David Gillham's Annelies: A Novel of Anne Frank when I first spotted it in the library. It tells an alternative story, of Anne Frank surviving the persecution she faced during the Holocaust in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and moving back to Amsterdam to live with her father, Otto. However, I do find 'what if?' stories rather fascinating; Stephen Fry's Making History is a prime example of just how good this sub-genre can be. I decided, therefore, to pick up the paperback edition of Annelies.
The opening section of Annelies creates an imagined narrative which relies heavily upon her own diaries. Events that I have read of so many times in Anne's own beautiful writing are rendered in a different voice here. The preface of each chapter contains a quote from Anne's diary, which I felt was a nice touch.
The first short chapter of the novel really caught my attention, and immediately sets up the alternate twist of history. Here, Gillham writes: 'And in that fractured moment, the world that would have been takes a different path: a flicker of the girl she once was makes a last demand for life. A breath, a flinch of existence... She coughs viciously, but somethingin her has found a pulse. Some vital substance.' We move from here to Anne's childhood, at a point in time before the Franks had to move into the annexe above Otto's workplace, but when the situation is becoming grave. Gillham notes: 'It's obvious that things are not good for the Jews since the Hun occupied the city. It's even obvious to a child that things are happening. Anne is not as oblivious as everyone believes. But why in the world should they dwell on it so?'
On her return to Amsterdam, nothing is as she left it. Anne feels like a completely different person, whose childhood has been left far behind her. She struggles to come to terms with the death of her mother, Edith, and her elder sister, Margot, as well as what happened to her in Bergen-Belsen. Her only way to survive, and to recover, is to 'transform her story of trauma into a story of redemption and hope.'
Gillham continually asserts the solace which Anne felt within the pages of her diary, each entry of which she affectionally addressed to 'Kitty'. He writes: 'In her diary Anne turns herself inside out... Splashing ink on the paper, sometimes boisterously, sometimes angrily, often critically, perhaps even artfully. She has learned to depend on words to see herself more clearly. Her demands, her frustrations and furies, her unobtainable ideals, and her relentless desires, all a reflection of the lonely self she confesses only to the page, because if people aren't patient, paper is.'
The historical detail here has clearly been well researched, and helps to situate Anne, particularly after her character returns to Amsterdam. Gillham shows how troubled anyone in her situation would be, and the myriad reasons as to why she is unable to settle back into her old life as though nothing has happened. The absence of her family is obvious at every point, and Gillham places emphasis on the rather tumultuous relationship which existed between Anne and her mother. The dynamics between each of the protagonists here have been so well drawn. Anne's grief, when she makes the gruelling journey from the concentration camp to her old home, is almost palpable: 'She no longer knows what home is now. Her family is dead. Without them how can such a thing as home exist?'
I have already mentioned that I had reservations about reading Gillham's book, but I really should not have worried. He handles Anne's story - both the real and the imagined aspects of it - with heart and compassion. Gillham's version of her is recognisable; the plucky, confident Anne, which is so often shown in her diary, and in the accounts of those who knew her, is visible and apparent. Gillham writes, for instance: 'Instead she has a swift desire to misbehave. She tastes it like spice on the back of her tongue.'
Gillham also shows the other side of Anne, the lonely, longing girl, which is sometimes revealed in her diaries. In one of the early chapters, the author explains: 'This is the Anne she keeps a secret from others. The panicked Anne. The helpless Anne on the edge of a lonely void. It would not do for such an Anne to show up in the world.' The Anne of Gillham's creation is three-dimensional, sometimes so much so that the loss of her potential - and that of millions more murdered in the Holocaust - feels overwhelming.
The omniscient perspective of Annelies, which follows our protagonist at every turn, was effective, and I felt that every aspect of the story was well handled. It is often chilling - for instance, when Gillham asserts 'Anne knows that she has no identity beyond the number imprinted on her arm.' Annelies is both sensitive and immensely readable. It feels incredibly thorough, and there are so many touching moments woven throughout. In his author's note, Gillham writes that he his 'priority has been to honor Anne's story with honesty and accuracy', and indeed, this feels like exactly what he has achieved.
I was a little wary of David Gillham's Annelies: A Novel of Anne Frank when I first spotted it in the library. It tells an alternative story, of Anne Frank surviving the persecution she faced during the Holocaust in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and moving back to Amsterdam to live with her father, Otto. However, I do find 'what if?' stories rather fascinating; Stephen Fry's Making History is a prime example of just how good this sub-genre can be. I decided, therefore, to pick up the paperback edition of Annelies.
The opening section of Annelies creates an imagined narrative which relies heavily upon her own diaries. Events that I have read of so many times in Anne's own beautiful writing are rendered in a different voice here. The preface of each chapter contains a quote from Anne's diary, which I felt was a nice touch.
The first short chapter of the novel really caught my attention, and immediately sets up the alternate twist of history. Here, Gillham writes: 'And in that fractured moment, the world that would have been takes a different path: a flicker of the girl she once was makes a last demand for life. A breath, a flinch of existence... She coughs viciously, but somethingin her has found a pulse. Some vital substance.' We move from here to Anne's childhood, at a point in time before the Franks had to move into the annexe above Otto's workplace, but when the situation is becoming grave. Gillham notes: 'It's obvious that things are not good for the Jews since the Hun occupied the city. It's even obvious to a child that things are happening. Anne is not as oblivious as everyone believes. But why in the world should they dwell on it so?'
On her return to Amsterdam, nothing is as she left it. Anne feels like a completely different person, whose childhood has been left far behind her. She struggles to come to terms with the death of her mother, Edith, and her elder sister, Margot, as well as what happened to her in Bergen-Belsen. Her only way to survive, and to recover, is to 'transform her story of trauma into a story of redemption and hope.'
Gillham continually asserts the solace which Anne felt within the pages of her diary, each entry of which she affectionally addressed to 'Kitty'. He writes: 'In her diary Anne turns herself inside out... Splashing ink on the paper, sometimes boisterously, sometimes angrily, often critically, perhaps even artfully. She has learned to depend on words to see herself more clearly. Her demands, her frustrations and furies, her unobtainable ideals, and her relentless desires, all a reflection of the lonely self she confesses only to the page, because if people aren't patient, paper is.'
The historical detail here has clearly been well researched, and helps to situate Anne, particularly after her character returns to Amsterdam. Gillham shows how troubled anyone in her situation would be, and the myriad reasons as to why she is unable to settle back into her old life as though nothing has happened. The absence of her family is obvious at every point, and Gillham places emphasis on the rather tumultuous relationship which existed between Anne and her mother. The dynamics between each of the protagonists here have been so well drawn. Anne's grief, when she makes the gruelling journey from the concentration camp to her old home, is almost palpable: 'She no longer knows what home is now. Her family is dead. Without them how can such a thing as home exist?'
I have already mentioned that I had reservations about reading Gillham's book, but I really should not have worried. He handles Anne's story - both the real and the imagined aspects of it - with heart and compassion. Gillham's version of her is recognisable; the plucky, confident Anne, which is so often shown in her diary, and in the accounts of those who knew her, is visible and apparent. Gillham writes, for instance: 'Instead she has a swift desire to misbehave. She tastes it like spice on the back of her tongue.'
Gillham also shows the other side of Anne, the lonely, longing girl, which is sometimes revealed in her diaries. In one of the early chapters, the author explains: 'This is the Anne she keeps a secret from others. The panicked Anne. The helpless Anne on the edge of a lonely void. It would not do for such an Anne to show up in the world.' The Anne of Gillham's creation is three-dimensional, sometimes so much so that the loss of her potential - and that of millions more murdered in the Holocaust - feels overwhelming.
The omniscient perspective of Annelies, which follows our protagonist at every turn, was effective, and I felt that every aspect of the story was well handled. It is often chilling - for instance, when Gillham asserts 'Anne knows that she has no identity beyond the number imprinted on her arm.' Annelies is both sensitive and immensely readable. It feels incredibly thorough, and there are so many touching moments woven throughout. In his author's note, Gillham writes that he his 'priority has been to honor Anne's story with honesty and accuracy', and indeed, this feels like exactly what he has achieved.
February 7, 2022
Priča zasnovana na pretpostavci o tome šta bi bilo da je Ana Frank preživjela Aušvic. Svi oni koji vole Dnevnik Ane Frank svidjet će im se i ova priča zasnovana na odlomcima iz Dnevnika. Ovim romanom zaokružena je priča o Ani i njenom život nakon smrti.
November 3, 2018
I found the concept of this book sort of intriguing but sort of disgusting at the same time, especially since Anne's last living relative, Buddy Elias, died at the age of 89 in 2015, and he's named as being the "protector" of her legacy.
We all know and have read/loved the Anne Frank diary. I remember having my own copy at home, and also seeing it on the bookshelf in my primary school classroom. That's why I'm unsure as to why this book has been released - taking advantage of the fact that there's no one around to stop them now, so they can sully her reputation?
In the first few pages, Anne is described as daydreaming out the window, watching a bride in her dress, and talking about being famous. This totally goes against the recollection of the original book that I hold in my memory, and isn't the Anne that we grew up with.
What also causes issues with this book, is.the really poor formatting, with random numbers scattered haphazardly across the page. At first glance, I thought this was meant to be read almost like poetry, until I realised it wasn't (it was occurring on every line). Then I thought it was me, but I see another reviewer has said the same thing, so it's a clear formatting issue, no matter what device you use to read this.
Unfortunately, while some minor formatting issues can be ignored, this detracted from the storytelling, and I ended up not being able to follow this at all. I wouldn't say this is worth getting, until they sort the formatting issues, and even then, I'd be reluctant. Hold dear the memory you have of the book - this feels like a cheap cash in.
We all know and have read/loved the Anne Frank diary. I remember having my own copy at home, and also seeing it on the bookshelf in my primary school classroom. That's why I'm unsure as to why this book has been released - taking advantage of the fact that there's no one around to stop them now, so they can sully her reputation?
In the first few pages, Anne is described as daydreaming out the window, watching a bride in her dress, and talking about being famous. This totally goes against the recollection of the original book that I hold in my memory, and isn't the Anne that we grew up with.
What also causes issues with this book, is.the really poor formatting, with random numbers scattered haphazardly across the page. At first glance, I thought this was meant to be read almost like poetry, until I realised it wasn't (it was occurring on every line). Then I thought it was me, but I see another reviewer has said the same thing, so it's a clear formatting issue, no matter what device you use to read this.
Unfortunately, while some minor formatting issues can be ignored, this detracted from the storytelling, and I ended up not being able to follow this at all. I wouldn't say this is worth getting, until they sort the formatting issues, and even then, I'd be reluctant. Hold dear the memory you have of the book - this feels like a cheap cash in.
March 3, 2019
I read "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" when I was in grade school and it was a transformative and influential book. When I studied abroad in college, I went to Amsterdam and visited the Anne Frank house, another profound experience. So I was curious to read David R. Gillham's latest novel, a historical fiction novel that addresses: what if Anne Frank had survived the concentration camps? What would her life have been like.
Well, this book does not do Anne Frank justice and I while I was ultimately intrigued by the premise, I quickly came to the opinion that this book was in extremely poor taste. It was a struggle to get through. The post WWII Anne Frank that Gillham fictionalizes is completely unlikable and solipsistic and one-dimensional. She is angry and lashes out at everyone else around her - for 300 pages. Why is a middle-aged man writing a book whose protagonist is a sixteen and seventeen year-old girl? This probably was not the best idea and maybe this is why the character of Anne that he creates is so flat.
The ending is rushed too, jumping fifteen years to the 1960s in New York City. The character development was undetectable. The writing and formatting of this book were lacking.
So readers, if you Anne Frank's diary was one of your favorite books, do not read this reimagining of her life. Stay away.
Well, this book does not do Anne Frank justice and I while I was ultimately intrigued by the premise, I quickly came to the opinion that this book was in extremely poor taste. It was a struggle to get through. The post WWII Anne Frank that Gillham fictionalizes is completely unlikable and solipsistic and one-dimensional. She is angry and lashes out at everyone else around her - for 300 pages. Why is a middle-aged man writing a book whose protagonist is a sixteen and seventeen year-old girl? This probably was not the best idea and maybe this is why the character of Anne that he creates is so flat.
The ending is rushed too, jumping fifteen years to the 1960s in New York City. The character development was undetectable. The writing and formatting of this book were lacking.
So readers, if you Anne Frank's diary was one of your favorite books, do not read this reimagining of her life. Stay away.
January 12, 2019
A thoughtful look at what if Anne Frank had survived the Holocaust.
We are all familiar with Anne Frank and her best-selling memoir. But have you ever wondered what if Anne (and even her sister Margot) had survived? Gillham not only wonders that he has written a beautifully researched novel that examines just that. Who would Anne Frank have become? What path would her life have taken?
Annelies is breathtaking and I found myself caught up in all of Anne’s emotions — guilt, anger, rage, sadness and happiness. Ultimately, it is a novel of the human spirit and how despite suffering the greatest of tragedy one can still overcome.
We are all familiar with Anne Frank and her best-selling memoir. But have you ever wondered what if Anne (and even her sister Margot) had survived? Gillham not only wonders that he has written a beautifully researched novel that examines just that. Who would Anne Frank have become? What path would her life have taken?
Annelies is breathtaking and I found myself caught up in all of Anne’s emotions — guilt, anger, rage, sadness and happiness. Ultimately, it is a novel of the human spirit and how despite suffering the greatest of tragedy one can still overcome.
February 20, 2019
Ik heb in mijn leven een aantal dingen als heiligschennis ervaren. De boulevard van Scheveningen, bijvoorbeeld. De zee gedegradeerd tot stadsgeneugte. Het Hallelujakoor als muziek bij een smerige scène in een film (welke het was weet ik niet meer, ik dacht La Grande Bouffe maar dat klopt niet). De hertaling van Couperus ook, denk ik.
En nu dit rare boek: Annelies, a novel of Anne Frank. What if … Anne Frank het concentratiekamp had overleefd.
Ik ken Anne Frank sinds ik een jaar of dertien was, toen ik dat dunne, blauwe boekje uit de grote boekenkast mocht lezen. Ik ging er een conversatie mee aan in mijn eigen dagboek, met de inhoud en met de stijl. Ik herlas het vaak. Later schafte ik de volledige uitgave van haar geschriften aan, en ze werd uitgevuld tot een echt mens. Niet meer alleen de gecanoniseerde Anne, maar ook een gewoon pubermeisje met woede en dweepzucht.
En nu dit rare boek. Het usurpeert Anne, ik kan er geen ander woord voor bedenken, de schrijver eigent zich haar toe en misbruikt haar, al weet ik niet precies waarvoor. Om goede sier te maken met zijn "zes jaar onderzoek" die voornamelijk geleid hebben tot het veelvuldig foutief strooien met Nederlandse woorden?
Ik vind allemaal prijzende citaten op zijn eigen website maar geen enkele bespreking in een krant die ertoe doet. De lovende woorden worden overal letterlijk geciteerd, maar een onafhankelijke bron is er niet voor te vinden. Inmiddels weet ik dat al die boeken die als poignant worden aangeprezen door bestsellerauteurs van wie niemand ooit gehoord heeft, gewoon slecht zijn.
Kirkus reviews prijst het boek maar misprijst de stijl: flat-footed storytelling weakens the impact, en ook Publishers Weekly zegt zuinigjes: It’s a noble effort, but this novel never lives up to the promise of its premise.
De stijl is inderdaad om te huilen. Op zijn minst had hij zijn leger Nederlandse medewerkers even kunnen vragen het Nederlands te corrigeren! Een lijstje:
• onderduiken wordt "onder het duiken" genoemd
• "paapje" voor pappie
• Westerbork "130 kilometers north of Amsterdam"
• VOOR SLECHTS VERTONING (in de etalage van een winkel)
• schuilnaamen
Ook benoemt Gillham regelmatig de meest uiteenlopende dingen als "Dutch." Het boek speelt in Nederland dus natuurlijk hebben ze daar ook Nederlandse moeders, dokters, leraressen ("a skinny Dutch mouse"), dakpannen, trappen, ramen, wandeltempo's en omgangsvormen. In Amsterdam hebben ze Amsterdammertjes, "little ones from Amsterdam," (tiepies een gevalletje Omgevallen Kaartenbak) en een "bustling Dutch citizenry" (p162). Gezellig is "a favorite word of the Dutch." (p189)
Steeds moet Gillham laten zien hoe goed hij zijn huiswerk heeft gedaan, waardoor het boek een sterk opa-vertelt-karakter krijgt.
Hij gebruikt ook zulke lelijke, misplaatste woorden.
(p85) "Mother," Margot suddenly announces, "you're shivering."
(p126)"Her mind hangs blankly in her head like a stone."
(p270) Annes verjaardag. "Dassah has taken a slagroomtaart from the oven."
Het nieuwe servies is Meissen Zwiebelmuster. Echt? Een Duits servies, vlak na de oorlog?
(p334) Hij laat vader zeggen: "I returned your diary for your own private satisfaction, because it was the correct thing to do." (Hij heeft het al die tijd verborgen gehouden, maar nu was het ineens the correct thing to do, en wie praat zo?)
(p369) tears … freely drenching her cheeks …
SPOILER ALERT
Vijftien jaar later woont ze - mede door toedoen van niemand minder dan Cissy van Marxveldt - in New York en ze heeft al vier boeken geschreven maar ze is nog steeds alleen maar beroemd vanwege haar dagboek. Ze heeft de hele tijd signeersessie (waarbij ze de Amerikaanse klandizie met 'liefje' aanspreekt) en lezersbrieven te beantwoorden, in een belabberde stijl (p373) "I couldn't understand what the heck was happening" (2x in 1 brief, en trouwens, 1961, wie schreef toen what the heck in een keurige brief?).
Haar kat heet Her Majesty Wilhelmina en vier regels later Ihre Majestät Mina, iemand draagt "a stylish chapeau."
En passant wordt het raadsel van het verraad van de Achterhuisbewoners ook nog even opgelost.
Soms vraag ik me ook af hoe zuiver op de graat Gillham eigenlijk is. Hij geeft een beschrijving van verschillende Joodse wijken in Amsterdam (voor de oorlog) . "… the haute bourgeois Kultur bastions of the Merwedeplein in the Amsterdam-Zuid, where pampered little girls like Anne and Margot Frank had lived …" (p247)
" … the Transvaal had been home to Jews scrambling up the ladder. Les petits bourgeois juifs on their way up." (Let ook op het strooien van andere talen, gék word je ervan.)
Van Anne zegt hij (p202) "She despised forgiveness." Voor mijn gevoel klinkt daar iets van een veroordeling in door.
Haar nieuwe stiefmoeder vertelt haar: "Anne, you were terribly spoiled when you were a child."
Hij vertelt regelmatig hoe Anne eraan toe is, om dat vervolgens nog eens in een dialoog te presenteren. Jahaa! Nu weten we het wel! In feite is het verhaal totaal plot- en ontwikkelingsloos. Anne is gewoon de hele tijd boos. Scène na scène laat alleen dat zien. De schrijver springt regelmatig het toneel op om ons dat nogmaals uit te leggen. Ze is boos want ze voelt zich schuldig.
Wat wilde Gillham met dit boek? Ik vind een interview. Hij zegt:
Through telling the story of one girl, I hope to tell the story of all the “Annes,” showing the lost potential of the millions who perished. Anne Frank’s legacy is one of hope and I want to show what we are missing in our world today, because of their loss.
En wat wil hij dat we meenemen uit zijn boek?
Anne is a representation of the Holocaust. Six million is but a number, but in reading her diary we see a tragedy. In this book, I hope people will see that Anne is someone we can identify with on an emotional level. She is a very skilled writer as evidenced by her last entry in August 1944. The message of the book, and maybe what Anne Frank tried to tell us is that hope can survive even in the face of destruction, despair, and brutality.
Al deze dingen zijn natuurlijk volstrekt overbodig. Alleen het dagboek lezen is genoeg, en dat is ook nog eens stukken beter geschreven! Dus wat kan dan je motivatie zijn? Onwillekeurig denk ik weer aan Haar Naam was Sarah. Een ethisch volstrekt onverantwoord boek, enkel en alleen geschreven because holocaust sells.
Wat een kloteboek.
En nu dit rare boek: Annelies, a novel of Anne Frank. What if … Anne Frank het concentratiekamp had overleefd.
Ik ken Anne Frank sinds ik een jaar of dertien was, toen ik dat dunne, blauwe boekje uit de grote boekenkast mocht lezen. Ik ging er een conversatie mee aan in mijn eigen dagboek, met de inhoud en met de stijl. Ik herlas het vaak. Later schafte ik de volledige uitgave van haar geschriften aan, en ze werd uitgevuld tot een echt mens. Niet meer alleen de gecanoniseerde Anne, maar ook een gewoon pubermeisje met woede en dweepzucht.
En nu dit rare boek. Het usurpeert Anne, ik kan er geen ander woord voor bedenken, de schrijver eigent zich haar toe en misbruikt haar, al weet ik niet precies waarvoor. Om goede sier te maken met zijn "zes jaar onderzoek" die voornamelijk geleid hebben tot het veelvuldig foutief strooien met Nederlandse woorden?
Ik vind allemaal prijzende citaten op zijn eigen website maar geen enkele bespreking in een krant die ertoe doet. De lovende woorden worden overal letterlijk geciteerd, maar een onafhankelijke bron is er niet voor te vinden. Inmiddels weet ik dat al die boeken die als poignant worden aangeprezen door bestsellerauteurs van wie niemand ooit gehoord heeft, gewoon slecht zijn.
Kirkus reviews prijst het boek maar misprijst de stijl: flat-footed storytelling weakens the impact, en ook Publishers Weekly zegt zuinigjes: It’s a noble effort, but this novel never lives up to the promise of its premise.
De stijl is inderdaad om te huilen. Op zijn minst had hij zijn leger Nederlandse medewerkers even kunnen vragen het Nederlands te corrigeren! Een lijstje:
• onderduiken wordt "onder het duiken" genoemd
• "paapje" voor pappie
• Westerbork "130 kilometers north of Amsterdam"
• VOOR SLECHTS VERTONING (in de etalage van een winkel)
• schuilnaamen
Ook benoemt Gillham regelmatig de meest uiteenlopende dingen als "Dutch." Het boek speelt in Nederland dus natuurlijk hebben ze daar ook Nederlandse moeders, dokters, leraressen ("a skinny Dutch mouse"), dakpannen, trappen, ramen, wandeltempo's en omgangsvormen. In Amsterdam hebben ze Amsterdammertjes, "little ones from Amsterdam," (tiepies een gevalletje Omgevallen Kaartenbak) en een "bustling Dutch citizenry" (p162). Gezellig is "a favorite word of the Dutch." (p189)
Steeds moet Gillham laten zien hoe goed hij zijn huiswerk heeft gedaan, waardoor het boek een sterk opa-vertelt-karakter krijgt.
Hij gebruikt ook zulke lelijke, misplaatste woorden.
(p85) "Mother," Margot suddenly announces, "you're shivering."
(p126)"Her mind hangs blankly in her head like a stone."
(p270) Annes verjaardag. "Dassah has taken a slagroomtaart from the oven."
Het nieuwe servies is Meissen Zwiebelmuster. Echt? Een Duits servies, vlak na de oorlog?
(p334) Hij laat vader zeggen: "I returned your diary for your own private satisfaction, because it was the correct thing to do." (Hij heeft het al die tijd verborgen gehouden, maar nu was het ineens the correct thing to do, en wie praat zo?)
(p369) tears … freely drenching her cheeks …
SPOILER ALERT
Vijftien jaar later woont ze - mede door toedoen van niemand minder dan Cissy van Marxveldt - in New York en ze heeft al vier boeken geschreven maar ze is nog steeds alleen maar beroemd vanwege haar dagboek. Ze heeft de hele tijd signeersessie (waarbij ze de Amerikaanse klandizie met 'liefje' aanspreekt) en lezersbrieven te beantwoorden, in een belabberde stijl (p373) "I couldn't understand what the heck was happening" (2x in 1 brief, en trouwens, 1961, wie schreef toen what the heck in een keurige brief?).
Haar kat heet Her Majesty Wilhelmina en vier regels later Ihre Majestät Mina, iemand draagt "a stylish chapeau."
En passant wordt het raadsel van het verraad van de Achterhuisbewoners ook nog even opgelost.
Soms vraag ik me ook af hoe zuiver op de graat Gillham eigenlijk is. Hij geeft een beschrijving van verschillende Joodse wijken in Amsterdam (voor de oorlog) . "… the haute bourgeois Kultur bastions of the Merwedeplein in the Amsterdam-Zuid, where pampered little girls like Anne and Margot Frank had lived …" (p247)
" … the Transvaal had been home to Jews scrambling up the ladder. Les petits bourgeois juifs on their way up." (Let ook op het strooien van andere talen, gék word je ervan.)
Van Anne zegt hij (p202) "She despised forgiveness." Voor mijn gevoel klinkt daar iets van een veroordeling in door.
Haar nieuwe stiefmoeder vertelt haar: "Anne, you were terribly spoiled when you were a child."
Hij vertelt regelmatig hoe Anne eraan toe is, om dat vervolgens nog eens in een dialoog te presenteren. Jahaa! Nu weten we het wel! In feite is het verhaal totaal plot- en ontwikkelingsloos. Anne is gewoon de hele tijd boos. Scène na scène laat alleen dat zien. De schrijver springt regelmatig het toneel op om ons dat nogmaals uit te leggen. Ze is boos want ze voelt zich schuldig.
Wat wilde Gillham met dit boek? Ik vind een interview. Hij zegt:
Through telling the story of one girl, I hope to tell the story of all the “Annes,” showing the lost potential of the millions who perished. Anne Frank’s legacy is one of hope and I want to show what we are missing in our world today, because of their loss.
En wat wil hij dat we meenemen uit zijn boek?
Anne is a representation of the Holocaust. Six million is but a number, but in reading her diary we see a tragedy. In this book, I hope people will see that Anne is someone we can identify with on an emotional level. She is a very skilled writer as evidenced by her last entry in August 1944. The message of the book, and maybe what Anne Frank tried to tell us is that hope can survive even in the face of destruction, despair, and brutality.
Al deze dingen zijn natuurlijk volstrekt overbodig. Alleen het dagboek lezen is genoeg, en dat is ook nog eens stukken beter geschreven! Dus wat kan dan je motivatie zijn? Onwillekeurig denk ik weer aan Haar Naam was Sarah. Een ethisch volstrekt onverantwoord boek, enkel en alleen geschreven because holocaust sells.
Wat een kloteboek.
January 16, 2020
This is a novel that imagines that Anne Frank didn’t die in Bergen- Belsen only weeks before liberation, but instead survived and went home to Amsterdam, so very damaged by her experience in several concentration camps.
This book was just outstanding. It will forever change how I think of Anne Frank, because in many ways, it fills out and enlarges the picture of her as a person. In life, she died at age 16, but her talent as a writer was so extraordinary that we all wish she could have gone on to live a normal life. But this novel shows how life could never be “normal” after the experience of being Jewish in Europe in the 1930’s and 1940’s. I also appreciated that the author didn’t minimize the deep feelings of Anne, her father, and other important people in her life. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who has ever read The Diary of Ann Frank.
This book was just outstanding. It will forever change how I think of Anne Frank, because in many ways, it fills out and enlarges the picture of her as a person. In life, she died at age 16, but her talent as a writer was so extraordinary that we all wish she could have gone on to live a normal life. But this novel shows how life could never be “normal” after the experience of being Jewish in Europe in the 1930’s and 1940’s. I also appreciated that the author didn’t minimize the deep feelings of Anne, her father, and other important people in her life. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who has ever read The Diary of Ann Frank.
October 9, 2019
This novel is about the “what if” Anne Frank lives through Bergen-Belsen and was reunited with her father after the war.
I thought the author really understood Anne Frank’s character and personality quirks, as well as her father’s. There was only one thing that happened that made me think “I don’t think there’s a possibility the real people would have reacted that way.”
I thought he got Anne’s curious/rebellious spirit really well, and he allowed her to age well too. I think some people beginning this novel immediately imagine Anne as a pre-pubescent girl, because that’s how we know her in her diary, but the author makes a 17 year-old Anne believable. I thought the novel had good details, imagery, and believability.
There were also excerpts from the real diary that I thought fit in well with the fictionalized parts of this novel.
I thought the author really understood Anne Frank’s character and personality quirks, as well as her father’s. There was only one thing that happened that made me think “I don’t think there’s a possibility the real people would have reacted that way.”
I thought he got Anne’s curious/rebellious spirit really well, and he allowed her to age well too. I think some people beginning this novel immediately imagine Anne as a pre-pubescent girl, because that’s how we know her in her diary, but the author makes a 17 year-old Anne believable. I thought the novel had good details, imagery, and believability.
There were also excerpts from the real diary that I thought fit in well with the fictionalized parts of this novel.
November 24, 2018
Every once in awhile, a book comes along that just takes your breath away...a book that you wish you could give more than five stars...a book that speaks to your deepest feelings. For me. Annelies is one of those rare books. It is so beautifully written that I lived the book with the characters, I felt Anne's pain as well as her anger and confusion after the war. I think its because I read The Diary of Anne Frank at a very impressionable age when it was difficult to read that she had died in the camps. Annelies is based on the premise that Anne survived and is reconciled with her father in Amsterdam after the war. All of the pain from the camps leads to great anger and survivor's guilt when she tries to regain her old life.
I must admit that I cried a lot of tears while reading this book. Anne's time in the camps was so physically demeaning and her anger and confusion after the war were so mentally harsh. This was a beautiful, well written and well re-searched novel. Suspend your knowledge that you know Anne didn't survive and read this author's story about what her life could have been like -- you'll be glad that you did.
Thanks to First to Read for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own
I must admit that I cried a lot of tears while reading this book. Anne's time in the camps was so physically demeaning and her anger and confusion after the war were so mentally harsh. This was a beautiful, well written and well re-searched novel. Suspend your knowledge that you know Anne didn't survive and read this author's story about what her life could have been like -- you'll be glad that you did.
Thanks to First to Read for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own
January 17, 2019
In all honesty I have to say that I had trepidations about this book from the start. Given the very real issue of growingly prevalent Holocaust denial, fictionalizing a story about one of the most famous individuals associated with the Holocaust surviving the camps seemed like a bad idea to me. While wholly understanding the intent was to make us feel what was lost even more, by showing us what might have been, I was still troubled. In the end, though Gillham's novel is well-researched, what it comes down to is my simply not feeling the authenticity of the voice of Anne Frank, in all it's petulance, adolescent longing, and burgeoning adulthood that I know from Diary of a Young Girl. This, on top of the fact that I am still left with those same reservations about fictionalizing her life and having her survive (because there are still so many that don't believe that the Shoah even took place) resulted in my rating for this book. This is a novel that should only be paired with the true history of its subject.
Annelies "Anne" Frank, June 12, 1929- February or March 1945
I received a Digital Review Copy of this book, along with a paper review copy, in exchange for an honest review.
Annelies "Anne" Frank, June 12, 1929- February or March 1945
I received a Digital Review Copy of this book, along with a paper review copy, in exchange for an honest review.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 393 reviews