Annexed (edition 2010)

In Annexed, author Sharon Dogar imagines what life in the Annex with Anne Frank must have been like for young Peter. We know all about Anne's thoughts and feelings, but surely Peter needs a chance to tell his side of things too. The novel begins as Peter is dying and looking back on his life, desperate to tell someone his story.

The first part of this book was really about 4 stars for me. It wasn't anything hugely different from what I would have imagined, but it was nice to see a different perspective on the other housemates. Anne frequently used her diary as a place to vent, so we tended to see the worst parts of everyone. In this book, Mrs. van Pels is shown as a caring mother who frequently says inappropriate things to help draw attention away from shy Peter. She steals the Franks' sheets to help him out too. His dad makes his awful jokes as a way to try to break tension. Mr. Frank is a wise, understanding mentor. Margot is inscrutable, but Mrs. Frank and Mr. Pfeffer are still pretty difficult to live with. Anne herself isn't always easy to live with, with her high ideals and mercurial personality, but she always makes life interesting, even within the confines of the Annex.

The second part left me feeling shattered.

Anne Frank's diary is a difficult read, because you do know how the story ends. But the diary just stops and, in the edition I read anyway, there was a very dry summation of what happened to the inhabitants of the Annex after their capture. If you've read any Holocaust literature at all, you can fill in the blanks, but it's easy just to not think about it and feel sad that Anne didn't live to make the mark she wanted to make on the world. (I'm not saying that she didn't make a mark, I'm saying that she would have chosen to live and write more life-changing books)

This book takes us into the camps.

We follow the Franks and the van Pelses onto the trains and into Auschwitz. Peter is separated from the women very early on, so we don't have to actually watch Anne suffer, but Peter spends a lot of time imagining what is going on with the women. He also tells us how hard life is, and we're there with him as he loses his father and as he himself almost, almost makes it through. I finished this on a plane and it was all I could do to keep from sobbing. I conveniently hadn't thought about life after the Annex, at least not much, but this book helped me mourn their loss.

Here are some quotes, both from the book and the extra material. These are taken from an advance copy and might have changed or been taken out of the final copy.

"As I write this, Anne Frank (if still alive) would have only been in her eighties. She might still be writing stories, still be reminding us of what it means to stay alive to the beauty of the world when all around you lies evidence of death, hatred, and destruction."

"I find a satchel and a spare jacket with a star sewn onto it, but then at the last minute I decide not to wear it. If this is my last walk through the city I'm going to do it free--as me--and if anything happens, if they find me--then let them."

"Today is the eighth of November. I'm sixteen....Last night [Mutti] came into my room. She didn't say anything. She sat on the bed and held my hand. After a while she left. Sometimes there's nothing that can be said."

"Trains. A platform.
That was the beginning of our end.
The selected.
It is hard to believe there was ever a before.
Or that there could ever be an after.
Is there anybody left?
Is anyone listening?"

"Because this is not a story. This is the truth. These things really happened.
This is what all of us here long for you, outside, to know.
That we went gently, most of us. We walked into the night of the camps in long lines not knowing where we were going. We went in trains, wearing all of our possessions like hope. Once, we were legion, now we are few.
Now our naked bodies lie in piles. Our bones are ground to dust and we are...ashes.
That is the truth"

"Now do you get it? This is what I did. This is how I lasted. For some of us survival was luck. No, for all of us it was luck. But for most of us it was because we learned to cheat and lie and steal and stand by--and watch while others were beaten and died.
In this way they etched their hatred upon us."

"We are standing together. It is the day they took my father. I cannot speak.
'What is left of him?' Mr. Frank says. 'The clothes that came back were not his, the number on his wrist was not his.'
'There's nothing left,' I whisper.
'You!' he says. 'You are what he has left. You will remember. You will survive. You will tell his story.'"

A recurring theme throughout the book is the German word, Wystawach. It means, "Wake up!" This is appropriate in so many ways. It woke me up to the horrible reality of the deaths of the Annex residents. This book, and Anne's diary, are a wake up call to us to remember and honor those we have lost. They're also a wake up call to remind us to be vigilant and prevent genocide and hatred. But we should also wake up and see the world around us. As the author wrote, we need to "stay alive to the beauty of the world."

This might not be for everyone. Anne Frank is not presented as a perfect girl here, so that might offend some people. Also, Peter is a teenage boy. What do teen boys think about? You got it. He spends some time fantasizing about a girl he lost. It's not graphic, and it doesn't take up much space in the story, but it is there. To me, both these points add some realism to the novel. If you don't like the ideas, you might want to stay away.

With the two caveats I listed above in mind, I absolutely recommend this as a companion to Anne Frank's diary.

Thanks to the publisher for allowing me to read an early copy via Netgalley. ( )

I have read a few memoirs and fictitious accounts about the Holocaust, including The Diary of Anne Frank, although I read that some time in middle school, or possibly even late in elementary school. Dogar's book intrigued me, but I had no great expectations going into it.

Her portrayal of Peter van Pels is as a confused, hormonal, depressed, not all that intelligent boy. At the outset of the novel, he is obsessed with a girl named Liese, who he dreams of and mourns after he enters the annex; her being taken away was almost the last thing he saw before entering the hidden area behind the book case. His love for her dwindles over time, as Ann ages and time passes. Reading the section on their romance reminded me vaguely of Romeo and Juliet, what with their both having had prior love interests (at least in the novel) and their fates being doomed from the start. Their interactions felt awkward and not particularly loving. What I cannot say is whether that was intentional, meant to be indicative of the fact that their emotions were driven primarily by hormones, close quarters and the stress of not knowing how long they would live, or whether they were intended to be perceived as some legendary thwarted romance as the cover blurb would seem to suggest.

The writing is simple throughout, probably pretty easy to comprehend for reluctant readers or children transitioning to teen books. The story does go back and forth from Peter on his death bed to the memories of earlier times. This is however not confusing, as the times in the bast are written in regular font and death-bed Peter's thoughts are italicized.

The second part of the book, which describes briefly the experience getting to and living (if it can rightly be called so) in the camps. While I know why she included this, I am not entirely sure it added much to the story. Maybe it did, and I do not know if one can write a story about the Holocaust without including that. Either way, I did not particularly care for most of the section, since it was essentially a repetition of what memoirs have expressed about the camps. Although perhaps it is more accessible for younger people this way. (Can you tell I haven't quite made up my mind?) The one thing I found interesting from here was the emphasis on the terrible things that Peter had to do to survive in the camp, just as a regular prisoner, not as an overseer or anything.

Annexed may not be my idea of perfection, but it did make me want to reread Anne Frank's diary, so that's something. To conclude are some lyrics from the title song, which I think are quite in sync with Peter's opinions, as held in this historical imagining: ( )

I am torn on this book. It was a really good, quick read. I also thought it seemed very realistic, but I know it's not and that's why I only gave it 4 stars. To me, I felt that this book captured the essence of what they were going through better than the diary. The things she wrote that Peter was thinking and feeling, was how I felt Anne should have been feeling. I would recommend this book to everyone who has read the Diary of Anne Frank. ( )

This was an interesting concept, to tell the story of Ann Frank from another perspective, but I could not accept the author's portrayal of Peter. If he had been a fictional character I would have found the story much more compelling. It is a heartbreaking tale, but it will not be added to my list of "must-reads" for Holocaust fiction. ( )

Dogar turns the famous story of Anne Frank and her diary on its head, now telling it from the point of Peter Van Pels, the teenage boy whose family hid with the Franks in Amsterdam for two years during the Holocaust. In the annex, Peter is miserable; there's no privacy, no space. The questions of every teenage boy-- "Will I ever make love to a girl?" "Who will I be as a man?"-- are amplified by their conditions, and Peter and Anne slowly seek each other out in their attempts to answer them together. The story is framed by Peter's thoughts as he lies dying in a concentration camp, reflecting back on his life and the events of the past two years. Readers who have read Anne's diary will recognize some scenes (and be delighted to hear things from Peter's side), but it is not a prerequisite to enjoy Annexed. This is a work of fiction, and Dogar is very clear to separate fact from fiction in notes to the reader and an epilogue depicting the fate of each character. Strongly recommended for grades 9-12. ( )