Anna Anderson's claim to be Grand Duchess Anastasia

[Anna was Franziska]

Originally Posted by AGRBear

I don't suspect the word of the doctors and nurses involved with the sample of AA's intestines at the Martha Jefferson Hosptial, just as I don't suspect the word of the doctors and nurses at Dalldorf. Why? I don't have any evidence to tell me otherwise.

There were checks and balances and paper trails and computers involved in the record keeping at the modern hospital, that's a whole lot more than second and third hand word of mouth from the 20's. Also, I believe I've read that some of those involved in the Charlottesville end were hoping for AA to turn out to be AN and were disappointed she wasn't. Did you know even Dr. Melton was once an AA fan? But they accepted the fact that in the end science proved she wasn't, and didn't make up odd theories.

I can't understand why anyone would cover up AA being AN, wouldn't it be much more exciting if she were? Look at the added tourism for Charlottesville if they could tout "Anastasia's" home as part of their historical tour! Russia too! An escaped princess is much more fun than a dead one. So the idea these officials faked it really doesn't make sense.

Just because AA did speak Russian to some and not to others isn't a surprise. This is consistent with AA's character as we know her after she ended up in the Berlin canal.

AGRBear

Convenient, eh? Speak it to supporters and not to those who don't accept you? More likely, she didn't speak it to those who denied her because she couldn't, and the supporters were either mistaking Polish for Russian, or covering for her.

The very claim by supporters that she could and did speak Russian is actually very hurtful and contradictory to her long time excuse that she was too 'traumatized' by 'Ekaterinburg' to speak it again. So what was she only periodically traumatized? See the holes filling with water here?

[tsarskoe]

Might I suggest, with regards to the question of the languages AA spoke, that we actually post the quotes from those who claimed she did or did not speak various languages. I will be happy to post some myself. This way one can measure the weight of each claim.

[Stepan]

The whole question about what languages AA knew or diden´t know doesen´t make sense. Some nurses at Dalldorf said she could speak Russian fluently and I don´t know what to believe or think about it. If that is true why did she never speak Russian after she left Dalldorf? Exept for some words and phrases spoken from time to time! People around her realized that she could understand it but when asked to speak it she always refused. Xenia Leeds said she once heard her speak good Russian to her birds but when she approached her she stopped at once. She must have had a very strong reason not to speak Russian and I think she knew she would have been exposed. Because I really think she could both understand and speak it but not as a native Russian. And native Russians would ofcourse have noticed it at once. She spent long periods of time with Russian emigrants,Schwabe,Kleist,the Leuchtenbergs and others. So obviously she learned a lot there. Not only the Russian language but other facts about life around the imperial family. And what about her meeting with Gibbes,her old English teacher? She chose to speak German with him! And hiding her face behind a newspaper. I cannot imagine the real grand duchess would have behaved in such a way.It´s absurd really! But what a fascinating person she must have been!

[Anna was Franziska]

Good points, Stepan. Yes it is ridiculous how she only used German, even to her French and English tutors, and native Russian speakers like Felix and Olga. Obviously, German was the only language she felt comfortable with, another glaring finger pointing to her being FS.

Originally Posted by tsarskoe

Might I suggest, with regards to the question of the languages AA spoke, that we actually post the quotes from those who claimed she did or did not speak various languages.

We have. Many MANY MANY times, in this thread, whenever it came up Chat and I both posted and reposted until I got tired of the repetition and was afraid I was boring others.That's why I stopped posting the direct quotes. I also have a section on it on my website. But if it's so far back buried in the "War and Peace" that is this thread that people aren't finding it I could do it again, if you want to have a go at it.

[AGRBear]

Yes, Stephen, AA, whomever she was, is a fascinating study.

Originally Posted by tsarskoe

Might I suggest, with regards to the question of the languages AA spoke, that we actually post the quotes from those who claimed she did or did not speak various languages. I will be happy to post some myself. This way one can measure the weight of each claim.

tsarskoe, I agree.

I've mention nurse Bucholz because she had been a teacher in Russia. And her testimony states that AA's Russian was fluent and more than just a sprinkle of words here and there. Evidently there was more than one conversation.

p. 10, Kurth's ANASTASIA, THE RIDDLE OF ANNA ANDERSON, Bucholz continues:

>>...I absolutely got the impression that the patient was completely conversant in the Russian language, Russian affairs and especially Russian military matters.<<

Having lived in Russia, Bucholz could speak Russian. She conversed in Russian. And she knew the difference between the Russian spoken by the peasants and the educated Russian.

Before we leap off to later years, let's look a little longer at what the people at Dalldorf testified. This was a time before Schwabe and the others outside and in what was to be her future as AA.

Kurt wrote p. 10:

>>All the members of the Dalldorf nursing staff could confirm that when Fraulein Unbekannt spoke about Russia she spoke confidently and precisely.<<

>>"She showed in her conversation such a thorough knowledge of the geography, " said one, "and so sure a grasp of the politics, that I would tell she was a lady..."<<

It would have been better if the nurse had said that AA appeared to be well educated but in those times education was usually linked to wealth, so, that is how she percieved AA, a woman of high society, a woman who just might have been GD Anastasia.

Could AA have gotten such information from just the magazines at Dalldorf?
I've never seen the magazines introduced to us in these testimonies, so, I can't give an opinion. According to Kurth's book, Dalldorf did have magazines which carry stories of the Romanovs from 1914 to 1918, including their deaths.

Nurse Malinovsky's and Bertha Walz's testimonies are mention on p. 11 to p. 12 and through them we learn more about AA's interest in the magazines, one being the BERLINER ILLUSTRIERTE.

-----
I just googled this magazine and saw some interesting illustrations of the magazine:

http://images.google.com/images?gbv=...art=18&ndsp=18

One of the articles in German talks about the Berlin Illustrater:

>>The Berliner Zeitung Illustrirte (BIS) as illustrated weekly magazine founded in 1891, the first regular edition appeared on 4 January 1892. As in 1894, the journal of Leopold Ullstein (Ullstein publishing house) were purchased. It was the first German mass newspaper. Technical innovations, such as the offset-intaglio, which Zeilensetzmaschine or the cost of paper production led to the BIS at a price of 10 pfennig then a week in the streets of Berlin was sold. This was even affordable for workers.


>> The first - and then sensationally perceived - frontispiece shows the photographic inclusion of a group in a ship accident killed officer corps.

>>... 1902, it was also technically possible, the latest photos.... This was considered outrageous innovation.<<

>>At the end of the Weimar Republic the BIS reached a circulation of nearly two million copies. During the period of National Socialism was the Family Publishers and distributed the paper brought temporarily into the clutches of Nazi propagandists. ...<<



AGRBear

[Pier Gerlofs Donia]

She just was the Grand Duchess, no doubt about it! Sadly enough she got cremated, now we will never know for sure...

[Menarue]

Originally Posted by Pier Gerlofs Donia

She just was the Grand Duchess, no doubt about it! Sadly enough she got cremated, now we will never know for sure...

Who? Franzisca? AA? The real Grand Duchess found where she was buried?

[Pier Gerlofs Donia]

Originally Posted by Menarue

Who? Franzisca? AA? The real Grand Duchess found where she was buried?

I assume the woman we all know as Anna Anderson really was Grand Duchess Anastasia. You see, I always loved fairytales and this tastes like one although the ending is sad.

[Menarue]

Originally Posted by Pier Gerlofs Donia

I assume the woman we all know as Anna Anderson really was Grand Duchess Anastasia. You see, I always loved fairytales and this tastes like one although the ending is sad.

I always liked fairy tales too, but this was straight out of the Brothers Grimm unabridged edition. I have no sympathy whatsoever for anyone who would impersonate someone who died in such horrific circumstances, it was the most horrible murder and I find it sad that anyone would even want to be thought of as that poor murdered girl.
Fairy tales for me end with "and they all lived happily after" and that definitely didn´t happen for anyone one implicated in this terrible episode.
I do understand what you mean, I think, perhaps you would like to think thatat least one of the family survived, it would be a nicer ending to the story than being dug up and having your blackened bones sent to laboratories and studied....

[Pier Gerlofs Donia]

Indeed, so I thought. But I do not think Anderson was very happy either... her presumed family never recognised her and when she was really some eastern girl imperonating Anastasia, she would never have seen her family again because she moved to the US. She never had any children, or real family and she must have been lonely and miserable even under the attention she got. If Anastasia died in there with her family, at least she would have been dead immediately instead of living a long unhappy life.

As Kurt Cobain said: "it is better to burn out then to fade away", well this certainly applies for she will never be forgotten.

Princess Xenia Georgievna, who had played with Anastasia when they were children, was of the opinion that Anna Anderson was Anastasia and didn't change her mind even when she asked Anderson to leave her home.

[tsarskoe]

Something I have just thought of. I wonder, that having been Catholic how much (if any) Latin would Franziska Schanzkowska have known? Latin being the root language of English I believe this question would be of interest with regards to the language argument.

[Shaiya]

I still say that AA was an alien. And we all know that aliens aren't Grand Duchesses or Polish factory workers!

But seriously, I don't think she was either Grand Duchess Anastasia or Franziska Schanzkowska. Maybe one day we'll find out who she really was.

[Anna was Franziska]

Bumping one of my language quote posts for those who missed it. These deal with eyewitnesses to AA's inability to speak or understand English or Russian, and her preference for German throughout her life:

Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

Sophie Bux:

I tried to attract the young woman's attention as I caressed her hair and speaking to her in English while using the types of phrases I would have used while speaking with the Grand Duchesses, but I did not refer to her by any name other than 'Darling'. She did not reply and I saw that she did not understand a word of what I had said, ....

When Ms. Peuthert saw that the unknown one remained completely mute and did not show that she recognized me, she tried to attract her attention by whispering some words into her ear in German and showing photographs of the Imperial family to her. She pointed to the Empress, while saying: 'Tell me, isn't that mamma?' (Or similar words). In the end she put into her hands a copy of a Russian New Testament with ribbons of the Russian national colors. All these attempts failed, the patient remained mute and strove to hide her face with her cover or her hands. I must point out that the Grand Duchess Anastasia hardly knew any German words and that she pronounced them with a strong Russian accent.

Felix Y.

I claim categorically that she is not Anastasia Nicolaievna, but just an adventuress, a hysteric and a frightful playactress. I simply cannot understand how anyone can be in doubt of this. These pretenders ought to be gathered up and sent to live in a house somewhere." He had spoken to her in all four languages, Russian, English, French and German, and he reported she only answered him in German.

Dmitri Leuchtenberg, the Duke's son

. When Mrs. Tschiakovsky arrived in Seeon she did not speak or understand Russian; she did not speak or understand English, except for what she learned from lessons taken in Lugano and in Obersdorf before coming to Seeon; she did not speak or understand French. She spoke only German with a north German accent. Grand Duchess Anastasia, on the contrary, spoke always Russian to her father, English to her mother, understood and spoke French and did not speak any German.

Olga A.

When Olga entered the room, the woman lying on a bed asked a nurse: “Ist das die Tante?”[Is this the Aunt?] “That”, confessed Olga, “at once took me aback. A moment later I remembered that the young woman having spent five years in Germany, would naturally have learnt the language, but then I heard that when she was rescued from that canal in 1920, she spoke nothing but German – when she spoke at all- which was not often. I readily admit that a ghastly horror experienced in one’s youth can work havoc with one’s memory but I have never heard of any ghastly experience endowing anyone with a knowledge they had not had before it happened. My nieces knew no German at all. Mrs Anderson did not seem to understand a word of Russian or English, the two languages all the four sisters had spoken since babyhood. French came a little later, but German was never spoken in the family."


From Dr. Melton, who is from Charlottesville and was involved in the AA DNA testing:

I "met" Anderson once, her habit was to eat dinner at a local cafeteria with her husband frequently, and they left their old station wagon outside usually full of dogs, always black labrador retrievers. On the occasion that I met her, one of the dogs had escaped through a partially open window while the Manahans were inside the restaurant. My husband and I grabbed the dog, and he went in to tell them about what had happened. She came out of the restaurant, put the dog back in the car, scolding it loudly in a language I was not familiar with.

Kashoub Polish perhaps? Don't forget too that she was heard to yell out in Polish in church in her old age.

other witnesses:

"It was not the English of someone who had spoken English since childhood as Anastasia did." said the English writer, Michael Thornton, when he met her in 1960. "The accent was Germanic, the sentence structure German, the grammar hopeless."

Dave Howey, who met Anderson, by then Mrs. Manahan, when he was a cadet at a Virginia military academy in 1977, wrote of their meeting that "Her husband talked for her since she spoke very little English. Her only functional language was German, her Russian having been wiped out, we were told, as a result of the trauma from seeing her family gunned down in the cellar of a house in Ekaterinburg, Russia."

[AGRBear]

AWF last post jumps all around the timeline and she does not give us one single source. And, all of her examples, accept one, Buxhoveden's testimony, has anything to do with AA in Dalldorf, which is toward the end of AA stay at the asylum.

So, for me at least, it's back to step #1 the testimonies of the doctors and the nurses at Dalldorf.

By the wayAWF, you still haven't given me one shred of evidence that any of the nurses or doctors did not tell the truth about what they knew about AA while she was at Dalldorf?

Timelines are important. Here is a quote from my forum:

>>17 Feb 1920. 9:00 PM ...

The person who is to be known as Anna Anderson jumped off the Bendler Bridge into the Landwehr Canal, in Berlin. She was pulled out of the water by Police Serg. Hallman and taken to Elizabeth Hospial in Lutzowstrasse

>>End of March 1920 AA was sent to Dalldorf Asylum

>>Doctors exaimination on 30 March 1920 recorded her weight at 110 pounds and her height at just under five feet two...

>>17 June 1920 AA was fingerprinted and photographed. These photographs were sent from Berlin out to Stuttgart, Brunswick, Hamurg, Munich, Dresden... (Weimar Republic). Places in Berlin, which probably included FS asylum where she spent some time more than once, were checked throughly.... Family members of those who had lost a dau., wife... were brought to see AA... This included the family of a Maria Wacowiak in Posen....

>>autumn of 1921 AA announced she as the GD Anastasia and talked about the jewels sewn in her clothes

>>Claire Peuthert was committed to Dalldorf at the end of 1921

AGRBear

[Menarue]

Originally Posted by Pier Gerlofs Donia

Princess Xenia Georgievna, who had played with Anastasia when they were children, was of the opinion that Anna Anderson was Anastasia and didn't change her mind even when she asked Anderson to leave her home.

What? Xenia said, you are really my friend but get out?
Unfortunately GD Anastasia didn´t have an easy death. The jewels that were so prudently sewn in her bodice for their survival after they managed to get out of Russia caused her to be finished off with bayonets......
No fairy tale there.

[Anna was Franziska]

Bear I honestly thought my quotes had been posted so many times their 'source' was as obvious too. The Bux quote was her official statement of her meeting, a translation of "La Fausse Anastasie" by our own Tsarskoe.

The Felix Y. story is widely published in several books, I can say with certainty it is in "Man Who Killed Rasputin". The original source was a letter Felix wrote to Andre denouncing AA as an imposter. He also wrote a letter to Victoria Milford-Haven (Alexandra's oldest sister) telling her not to believe Gleb, who was trying to convince her AA was AN. Felix stated that this was 'untrue' and that AA was a fake.

The Olga quotes were MUCH posted and publicized, from the Vorres book, as was the Dmitri Leuchtenberg quote. Besides the numerous times I've quoted all the Vorres quotes in this thread (you have no trouble digging up other stuff, search them!) this info is on my site.

Dr. Melton's comments are from Father Serfes site, Thornton's comment was from Klier and Mingay, and the Dave Howey quote was from his own personal memoir website (of which AA was a very small part)

Thornton's and Howey's meetings are dated, Melton's is clearly once she was in VA, the others are obvious to all who know the story (20's)

As for the rest of your post, it's a fact that the book "Last Days of the Romanovs" detailing the sewing of jewels in clothes was out in 1920. There is absolutely no proof AA ever mentioned being any Grand Duchess before 1922 other than a few questionable quotes from supporters who may have been lying or may have been mistaken about the dates. It proves nothing. And if you don't believe she was AN, why are you pressing this? Oh, you want the 'truth?' Then accept the truth, that AA was not AN, and that AN died with her family, instead of wild theories.

[AGRBear]

Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

....[in part]...

As for the rest of your post, it's a fact that the book "Last Days of the Romanovs" detailing the sewing of jewels in clothes was out in 1920. There is absolutely no proof AA ever mentioned being any Grand Duchess before 1922 other than a few questionable quotes from supporters who may have been lying or may have been mistaken about the dates. It proves nothing. And if you don't believe she was AN, why are you pressing this? Oh, you want the 'truth?' Then accept the truth, that AA was not AN, and that AN died with her family, instead of wild theories.

I assume you are talking about THE LAST DAYS OF THE ROMANOVS by Robert Wilton and Telberg. I have a copy. The first edition was published in 1920 in London and New York. French edition was published in Paris in 1921 and later in Russian in 1923.

Since I can't seem to find the part about the jewels being sewed in the clothes which cause bullets to bounce off the bodies, could AWF or someone provide the page or pages. I'll be happy to give the quote/quotes.

Thanks.



AGRBear

[Anna was Franziska]

Since I can't seem to find the part about the jewels being sewed in the clothes which cause bullets to bounce off the bodies, could AWF or someone provide the page or pages. I'll be happy to give the quote/quotes.

I thought this seemed like more Deja Vu! From page 87 of this thread:

Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

The jewels sewn into the clothes story was also mentioned in "Last Days of the Romanovs" (1920)

pages 288-289

The Last Days of the Romanovs - Google Book Search

It had been mentioned by Gilliard and also possibly Gibbes in their depositions.

[Anna was Franziska]

Originally Posted by Pier Gerlofs Donia

As Kurt Cobain said: "it is better to burn out then to fade away", well this certainly applies for she will never be forgotten.

He put it in his suicide note, but he didn't coin the phrase. Let's get the sources straight and give credit where it's due. He was only copying originator Neil Young, who sang it in 1979 in the song "My My Hey Hey"

My my, hey hey
Rock and roll is here to stay
It's better to burn out
Than to fade away
My my, hey hey.

and Def Leppard, who added the famous Young quote to the lyrics of their 1983 hit "Rock of Ages"

All right
I got something to say
Yeah, it's better to burn out
Yeah, than fade away
All right

[AGRBear]

Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

I thought this seemed like more Deja Vu! From page 87 of this thread:

It had been mentioned by Gilliard and also possibly Gibbes in their depositions.

Since the the one book I'm looking at which is English only and has 194 pages, which is just Wilton's part and this includes the index, I'll have to go to google to find the quote. I have the other book around here somewhere....

>>... For some days the grand duchesses and their trusty servants worked at the task sewing up the valuables in their bodices in their hats and even inside their buttons The Empress had few if any valuables with her possibly because there had been no time to secrete them but thanks to the precautions now taken the grand duchesses managed to smuggle all that was of greatest value into their last prison house.<<The Last Days of the Romanovs By George Gustav Telberg [the first half] Robert Wilton [second half], Nikolaĭ Sokolov [?]

When did AA say anything about the jewels? In other words was it before or after Wilton's book was published?

AGRBear

PS
Found my original 1920 edition. The quote above is on p. 289.