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A review by vagaybond
My Friend Anne Frank: The Inspiring and Heartbreaking True Story of Best Friends Torn Apart and Reunited Against All Odds by Hannah Pick-Goslar
dark
informative
reflective
sad
tense
I feel weird rating something like this. It's a personal narrative of the Shoah.
When I was coming into myself politically, around age 14-15, I read so many books on this topic. I was trying to figure out who I would be in the same circumstances. What does it mean to do good, what is evil (if evil exists). Now, 15 years later, I read this, and I am analyzing it for how to survive a fascist, genocidal dictatorship. When to leave, when will it feel like a point of no return?
One thing I do want to bring up is that Hannah Pick-Goslar was also a zionist settler. There's a lot of nuance to the fact that people were made to feel like there was no place to go, and in her case, her father and grandfather who were all killed in the Shoah were also zionists. And zionism before the Nakba meant a different thing. But also, the Nakba happened, but it wasn't acknowledged here. But I genuinely don't know what information Hannah Pick-Goslar would have known, and if she would have believed or rejected it. She also did make the active choice to go there, when her remaining support system was left in Europe. I sympathize with the trauma around being a minority in Europe that she must have felt, and the fear for her life. But, expectedly, I have trouble squaring that with the genocide of Palestinians, initiated by the British but taken on by the zionist state. Anyway. Colonization, oppression, genocide, are bad. The British have seldom, if ever, made a good choice when it comes to international politics.
When I was coming into myself politically, around age 14-15, I read so many books on this topic. I was trying to figure out who I would be in the same circumstances. What does it mean to do good, what is evil (if evil exists). Now, 15 years later, I read this, and I am analyzing it for how to survive a fascist, genocidal dictatorship. When to leave, when will it feel like a point of no return?
One thing I do want to bring up is that Hannah Pick-Goslar was also a zionist settler. There's a lot of nuance to the fact that people were made to feel like there was no place to go, and in her case, her father and grandfather who were all killed in the Shoah were also zionists. And zionism before the Nakba meant a different thing. But also, the Nakba happened, but it wasn't acknowledged here. But I genuinely don't know what information Hannah Pick-Goslar would have known, and if she would have believed or rejected it. She also did make the active choice to go there, when her remaining support system was left in Europe. I sympathize with the trauma around being a minority in Europe that she must have felt, and the fear for her life. But, expectedly, I have trouble squaring that with the genocide of Palestinians, initiated by the British but taken on by the zionist state. Anyway. Colonization, oppression, genocide, are bad. The British have seldom, if ever, made a good choice when it comes to international politics.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, War, Deportation
Moderate: Vomit