My Friend Anne Frank by Hannah Pick-Goslar

Hello my lovely readers!

It took me a LONG time to finish this book (again, blame the pregnancy), but I finished it a few weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Fun fact: I'm a HUGE Anne Frank fan. Weird, I know, but I discovered her in 2001 when I was 12. 

Anne Frank: The Whole Story aired on ABC over two nights and 12-year-old Naomi was shook! I related to Anne in feeling that no one truly understood me and that I always wore a façade with my friends and family. As a diarist myself, starting when I was 6-years-old, my diary was and still is the only place I can let my freak flag fly freely without judgement.

The house that I lived in at the time, had a huge attic that had a spiral staircase and twin bed (I dragged it up there) where I practically lived in eighth grade year. I was the Black Anne Frank as far as I was concerned.

I say all that to say, that after watching the movie and reading The Diary of a Young Girl,  I became obsessed and bought all books related to Anne Frank and became slightly obsessed with the Holocaust. Needless to say, I know all the players in her story and have read all the books about her and the people within her circle. When I found out her friend Hannah Pick-Goslar was writing her official memoir on her life, the Holocaust and Anne Frank, I was stoked. Let's get into it!

SYNOPSIS
In 1933, Hannah Pick-Goslar and her family fled Nazi Germany to live in Amsterdam, where she struck up a close friendship with her next-door neighbor, an outspoken and fun-loving young girl named Anne Frank. For several years, the inseparable pair enjoyed a carefree childhood of games, sleepovers, and treats with the other children in their neighborhood of Rivierenbuurt. But in 1942, Hannah and Anne's lives abruptly changed forever. As the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam progressed, Anne and the Frank family seemingly vanished, leaving behind unmade beds and dishes in the sink—but no trace of Anne's precious diary. Torn from her dear friend without warning, Hannah spent the next two years tormented by questions about Anne's fate, wondering if she had, by some miracle, managed to escape danger.

MY THOUGHTS
This was a beautiful memoir. I can't imagine what it's like, especially at 12 and 13 to go to visit your best friend and she's essentially disappeared. I can't imagine what it's like to lose your mother and your sibling before facing the atrocities of the Holocaust and the Nazi regime.

Hannah's never-wavering faith in God and her love for her family and hope for a better world left such an impression on me. This is one memoir I won't soon forget.