Published By: Rider
Pages: 320
Released On: 08/06/2023
When five-year-old Hannah Pick-Goslar and her family fled Nazi Germany to live in Amsterdam, she soon struck up a friendship with a precocious, outspoken and fun-loving girl named Anne Frank. For several blissful years, the girls were inseparable, enjoying carefree childhood games and sleepovers in their neighbourhood of Rivierenbuurt.
Then, one day in 1942, two best friends’ lives were about to change for ever. As the Nazi occupation intensified, Anne and the Frank family vanished. As Anne puzzled over the fate of her friend, hoping she was safe, her own family’s fate began to unfold: they were captured and taken to Westerbork transit camp, before being transported to Bergen-Belsen.
Amid horrific conditions and surrounded by death, Hannah heard astonishing news about her dear friend and risked her life to help her.
‘As a girl I witnessed the world I loved crumble and vanish, destroyed by senseless hatred, and with it, my best friend Anne.’
In an incredible memoir of hope, strength and defiance, Hannah’s story of survival is testament to the enduring power of friendship, love and remembering.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Rider/Ebury for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
Could there be a more poignant and important memoir than this one, other than Anne Frank’s herself? Especially as it turns out that Hannah passed away in October 2022.
To get the chance to read about two remarkable women as girls, as just friends, before they were who they were, is just amazing.
I’m always impressed when someone can remember the goings-on of their childhood. I know there was a lot going on and you tend to remember the difficult times, but I can barely remember ten minutes ago let alone ninety odd years!
It doesn’t matter how many books about the war and the Holocaust I read, there will never be too many. Every single person’s story deserves to be told and deserves to be heard and this is right up there.
Hannah explains early on that Anne Frank’s first name was actually pronounced Anna – her full name was Annelies. This may not be a big thing, almost negligible, easy to gloss over. But I think if we’re going to remember this remarkable girl, I think we need to be pronouncing her name correctly. “Anna” Frank.
I know a fair bit about WW2, or as much as was taught at school and that you learn as you get older, but to read about it from, not only the perspective of someone who was there, but from a child…it serves as a terrible reminder that this was happening by real people to real people, and not that long ago, historically.
Even though I have a copy, I’ve always been a bit on the fence about whether Anne’s diary should have been published, especially as she was so secretive about it during her life. But I feel the importance of it has outweighed the negatives. And I think this book can be put on the same pedestal, which is nice to think about for the two childhood friends.
My general rule is I only read happy or uplifting books in bed. And I couldn’t exactly say this book was happy. Yes there were happier moments, but in a book about WW2, unsurprisingly, it was quite hard reading. But I couldn’t’ bear to put it down at the end of the evening. It felt too much like an insult. And so I stayed up until I could no longer keep my eyes open, trying to absorb this unbelievable story.
At times I even forgot it was a true story, trying to fathom how someone’s imagination could come up with it, and then of course, there’s the stark reminder that it was unimaginable.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I cried reading this. At the horrors of war but also the horrors closer to home, the devastation of families and friendships.
What I find absolutely beautiful but heartbreaking is how positive these people can be when they’ve literally been through hell and back. The power of the human spirit.
A lot of war books tend to only focus on that six year period, and lots of survivors don’t like to dwell on their memories. But we see what happened post-war to Hannah and I think that’s as important. It shows that there is hope in any situation and we must remember that during turbulent times.
At the end, Dina has provided little bits about the friends mentioned in the book. Who survived and who did not. And I think this is of immense importance to their memories.
Books By Your Bedside 