Anna Anderson's claim to be Grand Duchess Anastasia

[Anna was Franziska]

Originally Posted by ChatNoir

Prince Christopher was the one who said: "Of course, Olga knows better than anybody that she is Anastasia." He was the one who came back from America and asked the family to take a closer look. Apparently, he was voted down.

Prince Christopher's biography tells a very different story. He didn't believe her. There is on proof this quote is real, because any source on him will tell you the opposite. Here is a quote from his biography:

"The poor girl was a pathetic figure in her loneliness and ill health, and it was comprehensible enough that many of those around her let their sympathy over-rule their logic. ... She was unable to recognise people whom the Grand Duchess Anastasia had known intimately, and her descriptions of rooms in the different palaces and of other scenes familiar to any of the Imperial Family were often inaccurate."

Felix Youssupov was willing to change his opinion for a bit of the alleged fortune (Botkin's book),

This is only an unverified rumor, Yussoupov denied it. But it does raise the question, which other supporters may have been backing her for a cut of the alleged fortune should she win out? AA supporters always accuse her detractors of being paid off for money, how do we know it wasn't the other way around? Seems more likely!

and Mathilde Kchessinska truly believed that AA was AN, because "looking into her eyes was like looking into "his". (The Tsar.) And she should know.

She met her when she was elderly, and she had never met the real Anastasia. Being the ex mistress of the Tsar, she wasn't someone you'd invite to dinner.

Gertrude was not convinced enough to sign an affidavit
to the fact that AA was FS.

You have to consider that if the family claimed her, she could have gotten into a lot of trouble, fraud, jail, and financial woes from her claim, besides humiliating her and possibly even putting a burden on themselves. By the time of the trial, Germany was under the Nazis, and her life could have been at risk. Even if she got out of fraud charges by reason of insanity, she'd have been sent to a death camp like other mentally ill people (Franziska had been declared legally insane in 1916, therefore, if she was proven to be FS, she was proven to be insane) Really, the family had ever reason to deny her and no good reason to claim her, for them or her. This is why they 'left her to career as Anastasia'.

Xenia said that AA had reminded her of things they did as children, where they had played, what they had played etc, and she never wavered in her conviction. Friedrich of Saxe Altenburg also played with AN as a child.

Seeing someone as a child a few times doesn't mean you can postively identify them grown up. Think of cousins you may have seen briefly as a kid.

When did Grand Duke Andrew withdraw his support?

He washed his hands of the entire affair after Gleb's vicious letter to Xenia soon after the death of the Dowager Empress.

Your Imperial Highness!

Twenty four hours did not pass after the death of your mother when you hastened to take another step in the conspiracy against your niece...Before the wrong which Your Imperial Highness is committing, even the gruesome murder of the Emperor, his family and my father by the Bolsheviks pales! It is easier to understand a crime committed by a gang of crazed and drunken savages than the calm, systematic, endless persecution of one of your own family, the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaevna, whose only fault is that, being the only rightful heir to the late Emperor, she stands in the way of her greedy and unscrupuous relatives.


Besides, I don't think he knew her all that well, either. He was married to the Tsar's ex empress, and his mother and brothers were persona non grata in the palace as the Vladimirovichi were hated by Nicholas and Alexandra. Any time he met with Nicholas wasn't likely to involve the children. I don't consider him an expert on AN. In my next post I will post the quotes by those who knew AN well.

Ther was something very strange about Andrew (Andre) and his involvement. He wrote to Sergei Botkin, head of the Russian emigre community in Berlin (and interestingly an uncle of Gleb Botkin) wrote to Sergei Botkin, head of the Russian émigré community in Berlin: “The number of people who have been drawn into this work is very large, and among them such strict discipline is apparent as was never present in Russian circles.”(Kurth p.152)


In this letter dated 1928, Olga A. writes to a friend:

February, 15th 1928, Hvidore

Dear Miss B***,

Indeed, you understand like us the absurdity of this story! More and more, I see that this story is all about blackmail and money....I say openly that my cousin André must have some vile motives to side against us…

[Anna was Franziska]

Princess Irene of Prussia, sister of Alexandra, who met AA in Germany:

I saw immediately that she could not be one of my nieces. Even though I had not seen them for nine years, the fundamental facial characteristics could not have altered to that degree, in particular the position of the eyes, the ear, etc. .. At first sight one could perhaps detect a resemblance to Grand Duchess Tatiana. At first I remained with the unknown one in the company of Miss of Oertzen, then alone, but I was not able to notice in her any signs which led me to believe that she recognized me. I had lived in 1912 and 1913 entire weeks with my nieces and since that time I have changed little. At the table, we sat straight across from each one other; then, she got up and left, without saying a word, and went to her room. At this time I already had the conviction that she was not my niece, but, at the desire of the Dr Grunberg, I went up to her room, and approached her bed. I addressed her in vain with words in the language that we habitually used, recalled situations from the past, spoke the nicknames or the names of persons we knew: she did not react to anything. She still did not reply when I prayed for her to say a word or to make a sign that she had recognized me; even when -in order to not neglect anything - I said to her: "Do you not know your Aunt Irene?"

To the Grunbergs big disappointment, who were so well intentioned, I left with the firm conviction that this unknown one is not my niece; I no longer kept the least doubt in this respect. We had lived, formerly, in such intimacy, that it would have sufficed for a small sign or an unconscious movement to awaken in me a familial feeling to convince me."

Signed: Irene, Princess Henri Of Prussia.

Felix Yussoupov

Felix met her in 1927 and pronounced her a 'frightful playactress' and a 'wretched creature who could not possibly be the daughter of the Tsar." "I claim categorically that sheisnot 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. After his denial, Anderson claimed he had tried to murder her, raising his arms and declaring "I killed Rasputin and I will kill you too for what your mother did to my country! We will have you out of the way!" In her story, she had to run for her life from him and he gave up after she had made it downstairs were everyone could see them. This, of course, never happened, and was another example of vindictively trying to damage someone who had 'crossed' her by refusing to accept her as "Anastasia."

Alexei Volkov said of his meeting with AA: the conduct of the people who surrounded Madame Tchiakovsky seemed to me very suspect. They intervened all the time, completed her inadequate answers, and excused all her errors under the pretext she was 'ill.'"

Sidney Gibbes

Gibbes denounced Anderson outright. "She in no way resembles the true Grand Duchess Anastasia that I had known..I am quite satisfied that she is an imposter." He's also quoted as saying "If that's GD Anastasia, I'm a Chinaman."

Earl Mountbatten
Son of Alexandra's sister Victoria (Milford-Haven), he was a first cousin to the Imperial children and had an adolescent crush on Grand Duchess Marie. Though villianized and attacked by Anderson supporters, his only goal in fighting her and helping fund the court case against her was not to cheat "Anastasia" out of money, but to not allow an imposter to steal his cousin's identity.

"I can assure you that there is not the remotest doubt that this woman is not my cousin. She was seen by all our closest mutual relations, all of whom declared there was no resemblance." He once told the BBC, strongly advising them against interviewing her and helping her supporters, who, he claimed, "simply wanted to get rich on the royalties of further books, magazine articles, plays, etc."

Baroness Sophie Buxhoevedon

She was in bed close to the wall, she was turned facing against the window, in full sunlight. When she heard us enter the room, she hid herself under the cover to hide herself from our stares, and we were not able to get her to show us her face....The unknown one spoke German with Miss Peuthert. Although she was permitted to get up, she prefered to stay in bed as long as possible. This is how I found her. After asking my companions to move away from the bed a little, 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, for when she raised the cover after a certain period of time, and I saw her face, there was nothing in her eyes which showed she had recognized me. The eyes and forehead showed some resemblance to the Grand Duchess Tatiana Nicolaievna, resemblance that disappeared, nevertheless, as soon as her face was not covered. I had to remove the cover by force, and I saw that neither the nose, the mouth, nor the chin were formed like that of the Grand Duchess. The hair was lighter in color, some of her teeth were missing-and the remaining ones were not like those of the Grand Duchess...Her hands were also completely different, the fingers were longer and the nails narrower. I wanted to measure her height, but she refused, and I found it impossible to get an exact measurement without force. We judged roughly that in any case, she was smaller than me, while the Grand Duchess Tatiana was more than ten centimeters taller than me. I have been able to verify this, thanks to the patient's official measurement at the time of her arrival at the hospital and that corresponded exactly with the one which was taken in my presence.

I tried to awaken the memory of the young woman by all the possible means; I showed to her an 'icon', with the date of the Romanov jubilee, that the emperor had given to some persons of the suite, after that a ring that had belonged to the empress; the latter had been given given to her in the presence of the Grand Duchess Tatiana. But none of these things seemed not to evoke in her the slightest recognition. She remained completely indifferent, she whispered some incomprehensible words into Ms. Peuthert's ear. Although I noted a certain similarity in the upper part of the face with the unknown -currently Mrs. Tschaikovski- with the Grand Duchess Tatiana, I am sure that she is not her. I later learned that the she supposes that she is the Grand Duchess Anastasia, but she does not physically resemble her in the least. She has none of the special characteristics that would allow any one who knew the Grand Duchess Anastasia well to identify her.

[Anna was Franziska]

Direct quotes from Olga in her biography, "The Last Grand Duchess" by Ian Vorres:

(pictured: Anastasia with her Aunt Olga, color by Hattie James)


p. 174

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."
“My beloved Anastasia was fifteen when I saw her for the last time in the summer of 1916. She would have been twenty four in 1925. I thought Mrs Anderson looked much older than that. Of course, one had to make allowances for a very long illness and the general poor condition of her health. All the same, my niece’s features could not possibly have altered out of all recognition. The nose, the mouth, the eyes were all different.”
P. 175

The Grand Duchess [Olga Alexandrovna] remarked that the interviews were made all the more difficult by Mrs Anderson’s attitude. She would not answer some of the questions, and looked angry when those questions were repeated. Some Romanov photographs were shown to her, and there was not a flicker of recognition in her eyes. The Grand Duchess had brought a small icon of St Nicholas, the patron saint of the imperial family. Mrs Anderson lookes at it so indifferently that it was obvious the icon said nothing to her.


P. 176

Olga Alexandrovna: “…That child was as dear to me as if she were my own daughter. As soon as I sat down by that bed in the Mommsen Nursing Home, I knew I was looking at a stranger… I had left Denmark with something of a hope in my heart. I left Berlin with all hope extinguished. "
P. 176

“Then again I heard that a party in Berlin, when she was offered some vodka, Mrs Anderson said : ‘How nice! It does remind me of the days at Tsarskoe Selo!” Vodka certainly would not have brought any such reminder to my niece… My nieces never touched either wine or spirits – and indeed how could they at their age?…”
Here is where she explains how Anderson's 'memory' of geting the scar on her hand as "Anastasia" was wrong:

“…The mistakes she made could not be all attributed to lapses of memory. For instance, she had a scar on one of her fingers and she kept telling everybody that it had been crushed because of a footman shutting the door of a landau too quickly. And at once I remembered the incident. It was Marie, her elder sister, who got her hand hurt rather badly, and it did not happen in a carriage but on board the imperial train. Obviously someone, having heard something of the incident, had passed a garbled version of it to Mrs Anderson.

(Though Anderson supporters discount this story, and claim Olga's children disagreed with her biographer, in fact Olga's own son Tikhon backed up this very story completely in his book, The Tsar's Nephew.)
In the letter to a friend dated Feb 15, 1928, already mentioned here, Olga stated:
"...every unpleasant event (like the renewal of the Tchaik(ovsky) History) disturb my heart and makes it beat too fast. At night this is bothersome because I feel it more."

[ChatNoir]

Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

Prince Christopher's biography tells a very different story. He didn't believe her. There is on proof this quote is real, because any source on him will tell you the opposite.

Prince Christopher's biography was ghost-written, he did not write it himself. He was the one who promised Xenia that he would house AA in his castle in Italy, told her that he believed very much in her claim, and then suddenly turned around, without ever having met AA. His book is nothing but hearsay, no matter how you turn it.

This is only an unverified rumor, Yussoupov denied it. But it does raise the question, which other supporters may have been backing her for a cut of the alleged fortune should she win out? AA supporters always accuse her detractors of being paid off for money, how do we know it wasn't the other way around? Seems more likely!

Name ONE!

She met her when she was elderly, and she had never met the real Anastasia. Being the ex mistress of the Tsar, she wasn't someone you'd invite to dinner.

No, but being the ex-mistress of the Tsar, she certainly knew his eyes.

You have to consider that if the family claimed her, she could have gotten into a lot of trouble, fraud, jail, and financial woes from her claim, besides humiliating her and possibly even putting a burden on themselves.

So why did mother Schanzkowski write to Felix: If it is her, bring her home?

By the time of the trial, Germany was under the Nazis, and her life could have been at risk. Even if she got out of fraud charges by reason of insanity, she'd have been sent to a death camp like other mentally ill people (Franziska had been declared legally insane in 1916, therefore, if she was proven to be FS, she was proven to be insane) Really, the family had ever reason to deny her and no good reason to claim her, for them or her. This is why they 'left her to career as Anastasia'.

Yes, FS was declared legally insane, AA was NEVER declared insane.

Seing someone as a child a few times doesn't mean you can postively identify them grown up. Think of cousins you may have seen briefly as a kid.

AA was identified by correctly answering several personal questions from Prince Sigismund.

He washed his hands of the entire affair after Gleb's vicious letter to Xenia soon after the death of the Dowager Empress.

No, he did not. He was only disappointed in Botkin's methods.

Besides, I don't think he knew her all that well, either. He was married to the Tsar's ex empress, and his mother and brothers were persona non grata in the palace as the Vladimirovichi were hated by Nicholas and Alexandra. Any time he met with Nicholas wasn't likely to involve the children. I don't consider him an expert on AN. In my next post I will post the quotes by those who knew AN well.

He was the Tsar's aide de camp and one of the last persons to see the children before their imprisonment.

Ther was something very strange about Andrew (Andre) and his involvement. He wrote to Sergei Botkin, head of the Russian emigre community in Berlin (and interestingly an uncle of Gleb Botkin) wrote to Sergei Botkin, head of the Russian émigré community in Berlin: “The number of people who have been drawn into this work is very large, and among them such strict discipline is apparent as was never present in Russian circles.”(Kurth p.152)

And Ernie wrote to Andrew that "an investigation into the AA case could be dangerous." Dangerous for whom?

In this letter dated 1928, Olga A. writes to a friend:

February, 15th 1928, Hvidore

Dear Miss B***,

Indeed, you understand like us the absurdity of this story! More and more, I see that this story is all about blackmail and money....I say openly that my cousin André must have some vile motives to side against us…

And this is, of course, the same Olga who wrote to AA: "I remember when we were together......."

[ChatNoir]

Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

Princess Irene of Prussia, sister of Alexandra, who met AA in Germany:

I saw immediately that she could not be one of my nieces. Even though I had not seen them for nine years, the fundamental facial characteristics could not have altered to that degree, in particular the position of the eyes, the ear, etc. .. At first sight one could perhaps detect a resemblance to Grand Duchess Tatiana. At first I remained with the unknown one in the company of Miss of Oertzen, then alone, but I was not able to notice in her any signs which led me to believe that she recognized me. I had lived in 1912 and 1913 entire weeks with my nieces and since that time I have changed little. At the table, we sat straight across from each one other; then, she got up and left, without saying a word, and went to her room. At this time I already had the conviction that she was not my niece, but, at the desire of the Dr Grunberg, I went up to her room, and approached her bed. I addressed her in vain with words in the language that we habitually used, recalled situations from the past, spoke the nicknames or the names of persons we knew: she did not react to anything. She still did not reply when I prayed for her to say a word or to make a sign that she had recognized me; even when -in order to not neglect anything - I said to her: "Do you not know your Aunt Irene?"

To the Grunbergs big disappointment, who were so well intentioned, I left with the firm conviction that this unknown one is not my niece; I no longer kept the least doubt in this respect. We had lived, formerly, in such intimacy, that it would have sufficed for a small sign or an unconscious movement to awaken in me a familial feeling to convince me."

Signed: Irene, Princess Henri Of Prussia.

And this is the same Irene who said: "She is similar, she is similar. What if it is she?" And the case upset her so much that the subject became taboo in the household.

Felix Yussoupov

Felix met her in 1927 and pronounced her a 'frightful playactress' and a 'wretched creature who could not possibly be the daughter of the Tsar." "I claim categorically that sheisnot 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. After his denial, Anderson claimed he had tried to murder her, raising his arms and declaring "I killed Rasputin and I will kill you too for what your mother did to my country! We will have you out of the way!" In her story, she had to run for her life from him and he gave up after she had made it downstairs were everyone could see them. This, of course, never happened, and was another example of vindictively trying to damage someone who had 'crossed' her by refusing to accept her as "Anastasia."[/quote]The fact that she answered him in German, shows that she understood everything he said to her in every language. The story about him trying to kill her, is most likely pure Lovell fiction.

Alexei Volkov

said of his meeting with AA: the conduct of the people who surrounded Madame Tchiakovsky seemed to me very suspect. They intervened all the time, completed her inadequate answers, and excused all her errors under the pretext she was 'ill.'"

"The people" would be Herluf Zahle and Harriet Rathlef Keilmann. Before his death, Volkov confessed to his friend Professor Serge Ostrogorsky that: It is true, I believe that she is the Grand Duchess, but how can the Grand Duchess speak no Russian?"

Sidney Gibbes

Gibbes denounced Anderson outright. "She in no way resembles the true Grand Duchess Anastasia that I had known..I am quite satisfied that she is an imposter." He's also quoted as saying "If that's GD Anastasia, I'm a Chinaman."

True.Gibbes is also the one who described Maria's deep blue eyes as "nice grey". [quote]Earl Mountbatten[/quote]

Son of Alexandra's sister Victoria (Milford-Haven), he was a first cousin to the Imperial children and had an adolescent crush on Grand Duchess Marie. Though villianized and attacked by Anderson supporters, his only goal in fighting her and helping fund the court case against her was not to cheat "Anastasia" out of money, but to not allow an imposter to steal his cousin's identity.

"I can assure you that there is not the remotest doubt that this woman is not my cousin. She was seen by all our closest mutual relations, all of whom declared there was no resemblance." He once told the BBC, strongly advising them against interviewing her and helping her supporters, who, he claimed, "simply wanted to get rich on the royalties of further books, magazine articles, plays, etc."

He was also the one who stopped BBC from running a documentary on AA. He took over from Ernest of Hesse as AA's public enemy number one.

Baroness Sophie Buxhoevedon

She was in bed close to the wall, she was turned facing against the window, in full sunlight. When she heard us enter the room, she hid herself under the cover to hide herself from our stares, and we were not able to get her to show us her face....The unknown one spoke German with Miss Peuthert. Although she was permitted to get up, she prefered to stay in bed as long as possible. This is how I found her. After asking my companions to move away from the bed a little, 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, for when she raised the cover after a certain period of time, and I saw her face, there was nothing in her eyes which showed she had recognized me. The eyes and forehead showed some resemblance to the Grand Duchess Tatiana Nicolaievna, resemblance that disappeared, nevertheless, as soon as her face was not covered. I had to remove the cover by force, and I saw that neither the nose, the mouth, nor the chin were formed like that of the Grand Duchess. The hair was lighter in color, some of her teeth were missing-and the remaining ones were not like those of the Grand Duchess...Her hands were also completely different, the fingers were longer and the nails narrower. I wanted to measure her height, but she refused, and I found it impossible to get an exact measurement without force. We judged roughly that in any case, she was smaller than me, while the Grand Duchess Tatiana was more than ten centimeters taller than me. I have been able to verify this, thanks to the patient's official measurement at the time of her arrival at the hospital and that corresponded exactly with the one which was taken in my presence.

I tried to awaken the memory of the young woman by all the possible means; I showed to her an 'icon', with the date of the Romanov jubilee, that the emperor had given to some persons of the suite, after that a ring that had belonged to the empress; the latter had been given given to her in the presence of the Grand Duchess Tatiana. But none of these things seemed not to evoke in her the slightest recognition. She remained completely indifferent, she whispered some incomprehensible words into Ms. Peuthert's ear. Although I noted a certain similarity in the upper part of the face with the unknown -currently Mrs. Tschaikovski- with the Grand Duchess Tatiana, I am sure that she is not her. I later learned that the she supposes that she is the Grand Duchess Anastasia, but she does not physically resemble her in the least. She has none of the special characteristics that would allow any one who knew the Grand Duchess Anastasia well to identify her.

This is the same Buxhoeveden who after the meeting first went pale as a sheet, then red as a beet, then pale again. She seemed very upset to have met a complete stranger.

[ChatNoir]

Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

Direct quotes from Olga in her biography, "The Last Grand Duchess" by Ian Vorres:

p. 174

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."
“. 175
.
“…The mistakes she made could not be all attributed to lapses of memory. For instance, she had a scar on one of her fingers and she kept telling everybody that it had been crushed because of a footman shutting the door of a landau too quickly. And at once I remembered the incident. It was Marie, her elder sister, who got her hand hurt rather badly, and it did not happen in a carriage but on board the imperial train. Obviously someone, having heard something of the incident, had passed a garbled version of it to Mrs Anderson.

(Though Anderson supporters discount this story, and claim Olga's children disagreed with her biographer, in fact Olga's own son Tikhon backed up this very story completely in his book, The Tsar's Nephew.)
In the letter to a friend dated Feb 15, 1928, already mentioned here, Olga stated:
"...every unpleasant event (like the renewal of the Tchaik(ovsky) History) disturb my heart and makes it beat too fast. At night this is bothersome because I feel it more."

A snippet of Bella Cohen's article from "The New York Times."
The Grand Duchess Olga, aunt of Anastasia, after being with the girl for several hours, said to Ambassador Zahle:
“My head tells me it is impossible for Anastasia or any of them to be alive. But my heart tells me it is Anastasia, and my religion tells me to follow my heart.”
Yet Professor Rudnef reported that in her delirium she spoke Russian. When Russian is spoken to her, as it was in my presence, she understands, for she replies correctly, but always in her broken German. She spoke a few words in English to me, although she said she had forgotten it. Professor Rudnef says her inability to speak the two languages may be due to a fear complex caused by her sufferings.
The girl had no warning, the Danish Ambassador told me, yet she recognized her aunt and her childhood nurse immediately, calling them by name. The Ambassador pointed out that the Grand Duchess Olga was dressed very plainly, almost poorly, while the nurse was quite well dressed.
Eagerly the girl submitted herself to the examination of Sascha, her nurse. Afterward the nurse said: “This is the body of Anastasia. I know her body as well as I do my own. Anastasia had a brown mole on her back – her birthmark. That mark is there. Anastasia had flat feet. This girl’s feet are flat. They are the same shape as Anastasia’s.

Other Identification Marks.

“In addition Anastasia had a protruding bone on her left foot. That protrusion is still there. Her ears are the same size and shape as Anastasia’s. Anastasia’s middle finger was slightly crushed in her childhood when a servant caught it in an automobile door. The middle finger is still slightly out of shape. Her hair is darker than was Anastasia’s, but it has the same wave.”
The sight of her childhood nurse spurred the girl into sudden talkativeness. Not even the visit of the Grand Duchess Olga had inspired her to such an affectionate outburst as that which she greeted her nurse. More than once she exclaimed: “Zhura, are you really here?” All this Sascha, the nurse, told me at the home of the Ambassador.
The girl asked if the Grand Duchess and Sascha remembered the circular staircase that led up to the quarters of the Grand Duchesses from the room of their mother. Do you remember how we used to stand on that staircase and say good morning to her?” she asked. “And on Monday mornings mother would let us come down to her room and watch the hairdresser do her hair. We children used to sit on little stools at her feet.”
She turned to the Grand Duchess Olga: “I remember an old invalid lady-in-waiting – Bal – Bal,” the hand went up to her head, “oh, if I could only remember – Balyanova!”
There was such an invalid lady-in-waiting, but very few outside the intimate court circle knew of her presence.
“A woman used to come to my mother and solicit funds for an orphan asylum. Did you know her?”
“What was her name?” The Grand Duchess asked.
“Belgard,” the girl answered.
The Grand Duchess Olga has said that a woman by that name did come to the Czarina for such funds, but that the fact was little known.
“So you remember, Zhura, I had two parrots?” the girl asked, and Zhura nodded, for that was true, too, though the outside world can hardly have known of it.
Another incident related by the girl and not recorded in any book took place on the royal yacht Standard. Anastasia, seeing a sailor standing very stiff while on guard, thought it would be good fun to walk back and forth before him in order that he would have to salute her repeatedly. Then she thought it would be even better fun if she tickled him. “I did,” she remembered ruefully, “and father took me down to my cabin and spanked me. I was not a good child.”
Next, Zhura brought out a small snapshot of a table beside which sat a woman whose face was hidden by a bell attached to a rope from the ceiling. On the other side of the table were two girls, but only one face was visible. Anastasia smiled slowly. “That was you,” she said to her nurse, pointing to the woman whose face was hidden by the bell. “And that was Tatiana and back of her was Maria. I teased you with that bell.” The Princess Anastasia herself had snapped the picture.
Certain published details of Anastasia’s childhood the mysterious girl could not recall; for example, the little plays the royal children used to present at Tobolsk. Yet she recognized Gilliard, the tutor, and said to him, “You have cut your beard off.” She remembered many things, however, according to Sascha, Gilliard and the Grand Duchess Olga, that happened in the royal household and are not related in any published account.
To the Ambassador the Grand Duchess has reported: “Zhura says that is the body of Anastasia, but her face is that of Tatiana. I realize, of course, that Anastasia, when she was a child, was so fat and Tatiana was so slim that we never even thought of the resemblance between the two. Besides, Tatiana was six years older than Anastasia, and already a grown woman, whereas Anastasia was still a child, with the plastic face of a child. Her excessive thinness has certainly brought the resemblance out between the two, *** if she is Anastasia.”
Then she added the words already quoted:
”My head says Anastasia cannot be alive***that no one of them could have survived. But my religion tells me to follow my heart. And my heart says she is Anastasia.”
After the Grand Duchess had left for Copenhagen, the girl received a postcard from her saying, “Remember you are no longer alone.”

[Anna was Franziska]

Originally Posted by ChatNoir

And this is the same Irene who said: "She is similar, she is similar. What if it is she?" And the case upset her so much that the subject became taboo in the household.

What is the source of that quote, and you are assuming she was upset by it. At her first meeting, she denied her outright. Why would she change her mind later? I don't believe it.

This is the same Buxhoeveden who after the meeting first went pale as a sheet, then red as a beet, then pale again. She seemed very upset to have met a complete stranger.

Who said she was red? AA was the one who was scared, that's why she hid under the sheets so she wouldn't be revealed as a fraud by someone who actually knew AN.

Andrew was not one of the main aide de camps, I saw a list of the main 3 and he wasn't on it. I have seen no story of him seeing the family that late. Anyway, he ended up not backing her, and Olga said he was trying to blackmail her. Think about it, he was a Vladimirovichi, his brother was Tsar in exile- that's the last branch of the family to want a child of Nicky to show up! He was probably going to be in on the charade, but backed out due to the rude letter.

Mathilde may have known the Tsar's eyes, but not the girls, since she never met them. And since AA was no relation, oh well! Don't forget Zina Tolstoy identified her as "Tatiana" based on "the Tsar's eyes" though Tatiana had dark eyes that didn't resemble the Tsar's. Her later switching her endorsement of AA to Anastasia proves she didn't know either girl well, either that or she was in on the scam.

I doubt much of what you say about Olga, but the main thing is, Olga gave her a chance, she wanted her to be AN. Because she was emaciated and scarred, it was like the lady who took home the wrong dog, she thought maybe it could be her, she gave it time, but it turned out not to be true. Olga felt sorry for the 'poor creature who believes she is who she says' (though Olga didn't believe it) and sent her gifts out of sympathy, but stopped as AA and her supporters became nasty (like Gleb's letter) Finally Olga just realized it wasn't her after all, that's all, no sinister plot to deny her for bribery.

Whatever AA 'remembered' was told to her by someone else, since she wasn't AN.

[Anna was Franziska]

Originally Posted by ChatNoir

Prince Christopher's biography was ghost-written, he did not write it himself. He was the one who promised Xenia that he would house AA in his castle in Italy, told her that he believed very much in her claim, and then suddenly turned around, without ever having met AA. His book is nothing but hearsay, no matter how you turn it.

Your claims of 'ghost written' are unproven, there is no evidence at all. Sometimes I think you made it up.

Yes, FS was declared legally insane, AA was NEVER declared insane.

What I said was, if the family accepted her as FS, she would then be legally insane and subject to Nazi death camp which I believe is part of the reason they refused to accept her.

AA was identified by correctly answering several personal questions from Prince Sigismund.

No one has ever said what those questions were. They only met a couple times as kids. Any of her supporters who knew the family could have helped her with the test.

And Ernie wrote to Andrew that "an investigation into the AA case could be dangerous." Dangerous for whom?

Dangerous to Andrew for being part of the charade once the scam was discovered?

And this is, of course, the same Olga who wrote to AA: "I remember when we were together......."

Again, Olga gave her a chance and realized it wasn't really her. There is no sinister plot involved in her denial. She took the time to get to know her to make sure, but sadly it wasn't her niece.

You know, none of this matters since we have the DNA, even though you won't accept reality, it's there.

[Elspeth]

Originally Posted by ChatNoir

As for taking it to court, it would show the world that the DNA proof is enough to legally establish Anna Anderson as someone else than Anastasia, and all this discussion would come to an end. But so far, nobody has been able to do that due to the poor chain of custody of the intestine sample and the hair.

It's not all that easy to prove a negative. How do you know that this is the reason why it hasn't gone to court?

Elspeth asked a question that I have been asking myself over and over: How could the two samples carry the same DNA? The truth is, I don't know. All I know, is that a blood sample from Anna Anderson, taken in Germany in the 50's produced a different DNA sequence than the putative sample from AA that Dr. Gill worked on.

When and where was this test done, and what techniques did they use?

[ChatNoir]

Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

What is the source of that quote, and you are assuming she was upset by it. At her first meeting, she denied her outright. Why would she change her mind later? I don't believe it.

See interview with Prince Frederick of Saxe-Altenburg; FOT, 235

Who said she was red? AA was the one who was scared, that's why she hid under the sheets so she wouldn't be revealed as a fraud by someone who actually knew AN.

Schwabe told this to AA. She always hid under the sheets when a stranger entered the room. When she discovered that the stranger was "Isa", she thought of her parents distrust of her since the time in Tobolsk, and would not talk to her.

Andrew was not one of the main aide de camps, I saw a list of the main 3 and he wasn't on it. I have seen no story of him seeing the family that late. Anyway, he ended up not backing her, and Olga said he was trying to blackmail her. Think about it, he was a Vladimirovichi, his brother was Tsar in exile- that's the last branch of the family to want a child of Nicky to show up! He was probably going to be in on the charade, but backed out due to the rude letter.

From Peter Kurth: Anastasia, the Riddle of Anna Anderson:
As an active aide-de-camp to the Tsar during the war, moreover, Andrew had been brought in close touch with Nicholas and Alexandra's children and had seen them at a later date than many others in the family.

Mathilde may have known the Tsar's eyes, but not the girls, since she never met them. And since AA was no relation, oh well! Don't forget Zina Tolstoy identified her as "Tatiana" based on "the Tsar's eyes" though Tatiana had dark eyes that didn't resemble the Tsar's. Her later switching her endorsement of AA to Anastasia proves she didn't know either girl well, either that or she was in on the scam.

What scam?

I doubt much of what you say about Olga, but the main thing is, Olga gave her a chance, she wanted her to be AN. Because she was emaciated and scarred, it was like the lady who took home the wrong dog, she thought maybe it could be her, she gave it time, but it turned out not to be true. Olga felt sorry for the 'poor creature who believes she is who she says' (though Olga didn't believe it) and sent her gifts out of sympathy, but stopped as AA and her supporters became nasty (like Gleb's letter) Finally Olga just realized it wasn't her after all, that's all, no sinister plot to deny her for bribery.

I am not saying a thing about Olga, I am just posting the impressions and stories from those who witnessed the goings on. I do not sink to speculations. And the reason Olga denied AA in public, was on behest from Gilliard. Read Peter Kurth.

Whatever AA 'remembered' was told to her by someone else, since she wasn't AN.

I have heard this for years, and still NOBODY has been able to tell me who the informant was.

[ChatNoir]

Originally Posted by Elspeth

It's not all that easy to prove a negative. How do you know that this is the reason why it hasn't gone to court?

That is what every lawyer has told me so far. Please correct me if I am wrong.

When and where was this test done, and what techniques did they use?

AGRBear has a detailed description of this on her site.
RomanovsRussia :: Login

[Elspeth]

Originally Posted by ChatNoir

That is what every lawyer has told me so far. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Well, obviously I can't correct you in terms of what other people have told you because I have no idea what other people have told you. I'm still curious to know how these lawyers are so certain of the motivations of individuals who haven't done something. They have no way of knowing which people have decided not to do something unless those people told them, and there's a difference between "A and B told me they would have taken it to court except for the chain of custody problems" and "it's never gone to court because everyone is being put off by the chain of custody problems." The first is a verifiable piece of data; the second looks to me like a bad misuse of inductive reasoning on the part of whichever lawyer made the claim.

AGRBear has a detailed description of this on her site.
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Thank you; I'll go and have a look.

[ChatNoir]

Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

Your claims of 'ghost written' are unproven, there is no evidence at all. Sometimes I think you made it up.

What you think, is not important. Please stick to the facts and back up your replies. The important point here is that Prince Christopher never met AA, and his tales are nothing but hearsay, no matter who wrote his book.

What I said was, if the family accepted her as FS, she would then be legally insane and subject to Nazi death camp which I believe is part of the reason they refused to accept her.

What you are saying, is that you are speculating. Nothing more, nothing less.

No one has ever said what those questions were. They only met a couple times as kids. Any of her supporters who knew the family could have helped her with the test.

We know what one of the questions were. Read Peter Kurth.

Dangerous to Andrew for being part of the charade once the scam was discovered?

Andrew was part of nothing, he was an independent investigator.

Again, Olga gave her a chance and realized it wasn't really her. There is no sinister plot involved in her denial. She took the time to get to know her to make sure, but sadly it wasn't her niece.

She took the time to get to know her? Spending a few hours with a woman near death is not what I call getting to know somebody.

You know, none of this matters since we have the DNA, even though you won't accept reality, it's there.

You know my answer to that.

[ChatNoir]

Originally Posted by Elspeth

Well, obviously I can't correct you in terms of what other people have told you because I have no idea what other people have told you. I'm still curious to know how these lawyers are so certain of the motivations of individuals who haven't done something. They have no way of knowing which people have decided not to do something unless those people told them, and there's a difference between "A and B told me they would have taken it to court except for the chain of custody problems" and "it's never gone to court because everyone is being put off by the chain of custody problems." The first is a verifiable piece of data; the second looks to me like a bad misuse of inductive reasoning on the part of whichever lawyer made the claim.

When Dr. Gill announced the results of the DNA test, he specifically referred to the tissue as "putative". Will a putative source hold up in court?

[Elspeth]

OK, so from what I can gather from Charles Ginther's letter at AGRBear's site:

1. He says that mtDNA testing was in its infancy when the tests on the Anna Anderson samples were done, but he thinks that work by Mark Stoneking and Peter Gill is generally believable.

2. He wasn't involved in testing the blood sample from Prince Philip, but he was involved in testing a sample from Sofia Princess of Hanover, another maternally related relative. Her samples matched Prince Philip's but Anna Anderson's samples didn't match either of them.

3. He says that the sample from Margarette Ellerick matches that of Karl Maucher, a relation of Franziska Schankowska, but doesn't match that of Anna Anderson (not sure which sample they're talking about here, but the wording suggests that there's more than one).

4. He obtained a blood sample from Germany, which was claimed to have been taken from Anna Anderson in 1951 and for which there was a notarised confirmation. This sample differed from the Cambridge Anderson sequence in 3 of 146 loci. (To clarify, this Anderson isn't Anna Anderson; the Cambridge Anderson sequence is a reference sequence for mtDNA testing and is named after the lead author of this paper: Sequence and organization of the human mitochondri...[Nature. 1981] - PubMed Result)

5. The German blood sample doesn't match that of Margarette Ellerick.

6. It also appears not to match that of Sofia of Hanover, although it sounds as though they had a bit of trouble with the PCR amplifications, possibly because the sample was rather old and the DNA had become degraded. If I'm understanding it correctly, this blood smear slide didn't give conclusive results. I think we're talking about the same blood sample as the one in point 4.

I don't see where any of this states that the DNA in the German sample differed from that in the American samples. It does say that it differs in three places from the Cambridge Anderson reference sequence, but that has nothing to do with Anna Anderson, it's a different Anderson altogether.

Could you point out if I'm missing something here? As far as I can see, his first few points state that he's comfortable with the results obtained by Drs Gill and Stoneking (who say that Anna Anderson isn't related to the Russian Imperial family but don't say definitely that she is or isn't related to the Schankowska family although they say that the results indicate that she very probably is) and that his own results on Sofia of Hanover also show that Anna Anderson isn't related to her. If anything, I'd say that his statement generally supports the Gill results.

[Elspeth]

Originally Posted by ChatNoir

When Dr. Gill announced the results of the DNA test, he specifically referred to the tissue as "putative". Will a putative source hold up in court?

Could you give the exact wording here? I'd have to dig out my copy of the papers, but as far as I remember, the only time they used the term "putative," it was in relation to the findings in the mass grave in Russia, where they referred to the remains as the putative Tsar, etc.

[ChatNoir]

Originally Posted by Elspeth

Could you give the exact wording here? I'd have to dig out my copy of the papers, but as far as I remember, the only time they used the term "putative," it was in relation to the findings in the mass grave in Russia, where they referred to the remains as the putative Tsar, etc.

My information comes from Wikipedia: Anna Anderson.
Now, if the German sample from AA did not match that of Ellerik, how could it match AA's?

[Elspeth]

Did anyone test the US samples against a sample from Margarette Ellerick? If so, were they using the same tests and the same loci as the people who tested the German sample?

[Elspeth]

Originally Posted by ChatNoir

My information comes from Wikipedia: Anna Anderson.

The paper "Establishing the Identity of Anna Anderson Manahan" (by Stoneking, Gill, Melton, et al.) doesn't contain the word "putative" that I can see.

In the Gill et al. paper "Identification of the Remains of the Romanov Family by DNA Analysis," the remains are referred to as the putative Tsar etc, but this paper doesn't have to do with Anna Anderson.

[ChatNoir]

Originally Posted by Elspeth

The paper "Establishing the Identity of Anna Anderson Manahan" (by Stoneking, Gill, Melton, et al.) doesn't contain the word "putative" that I can see.

In the Gill et al. paper "Identification of the Remains of the Romanov Family by DNA Analysis," the remains are referred to as the putative Tsar etc, but this paper doesn't have to do with Anna Anderson.

There are several references to Gill calling the sample "putative" on the internet, but I have no access to his own papers. From the book "The Romanovs" by Massie:
Peter Gill described what he had done: he had extracted both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA from the Charlottesville tissue (which, he always said carefully, was "said to have come from Anna Anderson")