Anne Frank as Heroine: Annelies by David R. Gillham

Once I started this novel, I could hardly put it down. The author has created an alternate scenario for Anne Frank. Instead of dying at Bergen-Belsen, as the real Anne did, she survives and returns to Amsterdam, where she joins her father (the actual sole survivor of the eight who hid together from the Nazis), Miep, Bep and the rest of the office staff at 263 Prinsengracht.

Hers is not a happy existence. Her anger, anxiety, survivor's guilt and the post-war surroundings are portrayed with a remarkable intensity. It is all so vivid and compelling that it is easy to almost believe that it is true, not fictional. As a reader, you want to believe it.

From the age of ten or so, Anne Frank has been a part of my life. Like so many other girls, I read The Diary of a Young Girl multiple times, and as an adult, I read every book and account of her life I could find. I first visited the Anne Frank house in 1987, when it was still possible to climb the narrow stairs that led to the attic where the Franks and their friends had lived, and peer into her room, where some of her film star pictures were still glued to the walls. 

Despite all this, Anne remained untouchable and abstract. It was always clear that she had a talent and unique intelligence, and her death (along with the millions of others) was a horrible and unfathomable crime. I have always wondered what work she would have produced had she survived.

Somehow, this novel provides a context, even though it is all conjecture. It is, however, an amazing window into the workings of the mind of a survivor of a horrific experience, and into the conditions in Amsterdam and other European cities, post World War II. I don't think, for those of us Americans who were born after the war, that this is really something we can easily grasp.

The author has clearly done an immense amount of research into Anne Frank and the others who hid in the Annex, the Jewish community of Amsterdam prior to and during the war, the circumstances of the expulsions to the camps and the conditions and experiences of the inmates, survivor life in The Netherlands and elsewhere, and the psychological and emotional effects of such experiences.

On top of all that, this is a compelling story with a satisfying conclusion. I look forward to reading more by this author.