The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank

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Summary: Remarkable Testimony for a Revered Legend
Review: "The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank" by Willy Lindwer was originally a documentary. The author and filmmaker's encounter with the women who knew Anne Frank, after her family was captured, left him with more material than could ever be told in a documentary. It is collected here in this powerful and necessary testament to the legacy of Anne Frank.

The book begins with a slight overview of Anne Frank's life. It then gives way to the stories of six women who knew her - some before her deportation to the camps, and all of them during her final days at Bergen-Belsen. The collection begins with the reminiscences of Hannah Elisabeth Pick-Goslar, Anne's childhood friend (who she wrote about in her diary), who later threw her Red Cross packages across the barbed-wire fence of the camp when they miraculously encountered one another again. The stories the women have to tell are similar - their treatment in the camp, the way they met Anne and Margot - and all of them were inexplicably touched by her life. Some felt an overwhelming sense of failure at not being able to do more to help these poor sisters, but there was little they could do, especially when both were fighting typhus and had little will, or strength, to survive. At least one even made comment that had Anne known her father was still alive, she might have fought a little harder to see her beloved Pip once more. Anne was the 'apple of her father's eye' and his life after the liberation of Auschwitz was to let her words bear testimony for her.

These women all have powerful and miraculous stories to tell. The fact that they survived the death camp is a miracle in itself. One of the women's husband survived Auschwitz with Otto Frank and many of them had the privilege of meeting him after the war; and one had the sad 'honor' of confirming Anne and Margot's deaths. Perhaps the story of Rachel van Amerongen-Frankfoorder is the most compelling for her witness to not only the girls' final days, but to their deaths as well. Both the Frank girls died of
typhus a few short weeks before the liberation of the camps. "The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank" is a crucial examination of an amazing life cut short by unimaginable cruelty, and to the miracle of those who survived to tell it in their own words.

Rating:
Summary: These women are the definition of courage
Review: After reading Anne Frank the Last Seven Months, I relized how difficult it was for the jews and for any person during this time. I like this book a lot and I recommond reading it if possible. This book makes you feel like you new exactly how that person was feeling. It put you inside the stories the people told. It was a sad story to read because of all the people that died of other peoples differences. That the samething happen to every person that was a 'jew" that the story didn't change. People were hiding out of years before they were sent off to a death camp. They lived in fear of the next day hoping that the Green Police weren't find them. Once they were found they didn't know if they would live to see there family again. The Nazis killed so many people and so many people got disease and got sick. Everyday more love ones were dying and if you were lucky you could be with them as they die as for some was sent to different death camps, you had no idea if you wife, husband, son, daughter, or best friend since were in third grade had died.

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Summary: Anne Frank the Girl the Legend
Review: After reading Anne Frank the Last Seven Months, I relized how difficult it was for the jews and for any person during this time. I like this book a lot and I recommond reading it if possible. This book makes you feel like you new exactly how that person was feeling. It put you inside the stories the people told. It was a sad story to read because of all the people that died of other peoples differences. That the samething happen to every person that was a 'jew" that the story didn't change. People were hiding out of years before they were sent off to a death camp. They lived in fear of the next day hoping that the Green Police weren't find them. Once they were found they didn't know if they would live to see there family again. The Nazis killed so many people and so many people got disease and got sick. Everyday more love ones were dying and if you were lucky you could be with them as they die as for some was sent to different death camps, you had no idea if you wife, husband, son, daughter, or best friend since were in third grade had died.

Rating:
Summary: Get it!
Review: I read Anne Frank's diary again during my first trip to Amsterdam recently to prepare myself to a visit to the Secret Annex. But the book (and the corny Hollywood adaptation) left me wondering what happened to her after the diary. This book about her last seven months at the concentration camps gives a clear picture of what Anne's life was like through the accounts of the women who encountered her there. I could not put this book down and would sleep at 4 in the morning, read it in bed, in the bathroom, in the car, sometimes it would leave me crying. I am not Jewish and I am only in my 30s but this book touched me a lot (just like Schindler's List) and left me wanting to know more.

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Summary: Steven Speilberg: here's a perfect movie for you
Review: It's been a few years since I read this book. However, I recently watched the video interviews (Anne Frank Remembered) of the same concentration camp survivors that the author quoted in this heart-wrenching book. This book adds information not before known and is worth reading by anyone who is curious about what life was like for Anne Frank and her family after the diary. Along with Ernst Schnabel's book Anne Frank: A Portrait in Courage, it could form the basis of a great movie which for the first time would show what happened to Anne Frank post-Diary. (written on June 12, AF's birthday)

Rating:
Summary: Steven Speilberg: here's a perfect movie for you
Review: It's been a few years since I read this book. However, I recently watched the video interviews (Anne Frank Remembered) of the same concentration camp survivors that the author quoted in this heart-wrenching book. This book adds information not before known and is worth reading by anyone who is curious about what life was like for Anne Frank and her family after the diary. Along with Ernst Schnabel's book Anne Frank: A Portrait in Courage, it could form the basis of a great movie which for the first time would show what happened to Anne Frank post-Diary. (written on June 12, AF's birthday)

Rating:
Summary: These women are the definition of courage
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read. A must read for all ages. These ladies are some of the most courageous people in the world. They perserved knowing that their demise could be any day. But living was too important to them so they dug deep within themselves to keep their spirit alive and they succeeded. Hooray for them!!! Miep Gies is also a very courageous person. She is right up there with these ladies. "Anne Frank Remembered" by Miep Gies and Alison Leslie Gold is also a wonderful book. If you are looking for excellent reading and a time frame for the life of Anne Frank, then by all means read this book. I don't know if I could handle the pressures that these ladies went through to live, and I hope that I never have to endure their suffering, but if I do, I will take these 7 women with me and draw on their strengths and spirit to keep me alive.

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Summary: Touching stories of courageous women.
Review: When I finished reading the diary on Anne Frank I needed to know more about the rest of her life. The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank are stories of women who knew Anne in the concentration camp. It is more about other womens stories than Annes but sometimes includes a bit about her expieriences.