Not so sure about this one ... I plodded through to the end but it did feel unremittingly grim (and a bit boring and repetitive!). The premise is, what would have happened had Anne Frank survived the death camps and been reunited with her father and her diary? I'm not convinced that anybody has the right to take ownership of Anne's story ... let's leave her the truth of her own life and death, at least. She could conceivably still be living today.
The atmosphere of post-war Amsterdam was interesting, though - and the extraordinary fact that the Franks might well have been deported back to Germany.
3 comments:
Gosh, I think this is a bizarre idea...
I know, I did feel a bit uncomfortable about it. Is it distance in time, do you think? Or appropriating someone's life and changing the ending? Seems a bit lazy, too.
Not having read this book (nor will I) I am curious about your last sentence: "the extraordinary fact that the Franks might well have been deported back to Germany". Although the dutch (I am dutch) have in general not treated their jewish citizens very well during the war (although there has been individual heroism such as Miep Gies who helped the Frank family. And let's not forget that the German occupiers were extremely harsh to people caught helping jews) and even after the war my country was not nearly as welcoming, generous and empathetic towards the few returning victims as would have been appropriate, but deportations back to Germany have not taken place. Mr Otto Frank, the sole survivor of the family, returned to Amsterdam en lived with Miep Gies and her husband for seven years, until he emigrated to Switzerland in 1952. So I wonder on what information that "fact"is based?
Kind regards, Andrea from The Netherlands
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