1994 British TV Documentary - Anastasia Dead or Alive?

[Forum Admin]

"dans une automobile, on l'a endormie, on lui a enlevé ses vêtements pour lui en mettre d'autres, et on l'a jetée, toujours endormie,"

"in an automobile, she was drugged to sleep, they removed her clothes for her and put on others, and she was thrown, still totally drugged,"

[Lemur]

Wow. This is an amazing wealth of previously (to me anyway) unknown details! Thank you so much, Krasnoeselo for translating and typing all this (and FA for the missing line)

Some of those early details of her escape and travels certainly only made her look more ridiculous, especially now. It also shows how the details changed over time as it suited her.

So she was drugged, had her clothes changed and was tossed into the canal? That is so outrageous it casts even more doubt on it all. Looks like her supporters were in on the invention of the story and any additions and subtractions that came later. The claimaint is looking sillier all the time. What a shame these things weren't well known all along to bring strong challenge against the claims of her supporters.

[Annie]

Opening this thread was like opening a late birthday present (it was yesterday.) I had always wanted to see Gilliard's book translated and I thank you very much for sharing this with us. I can see how you, as a former supporter yourself, find it fascinating to discover these things that help explain how this ficticious story got its start and carried on. That is one reason I've been so determined to show the other side and expose the fraud and dispell the doubt to any more information seekers. While I wouldn't call myself a supporter, I was for many of my younger years a partial believer with nagging doubts. I wanted to believe. Now that I don't, it's very interesting to go back and find these things and put it all together until there are really no more mysteries, other than why so many were tricked for so long, and who all was in on it. I have had several epithanies, and 'oooooh!' moments in my search for the other side, and this is yet another one. Thank you for all this valuable information.

After that, the one who called herself Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicolaievna declared that in fact, being in Romania, she had, due to the advice of her companion, tried all means to alter her facial features.  She received, from an intermediary, this person who died in Romania, a device (apparatus), that she used on her face and succeeded a little in changing the form of her nose and mouth.
(Signed) Baron Klesit

When I read this I couldn't help but laugh! I device used to change her face! Ha! This shows right here she knew she didn't favor AN that much, but please, how completely unbelievable! LOL!

These passages confirm my suspicions about Baron Von Kliest and even add to them. I seriously question Zina Tolstoy, how could she first accept her as 'Tatiana' and then change so easily to "Anastasia" if she truly knew them both and truly believed? That is the biggest mystery left to crack, who all was in on this, why, when, and how they joined in and what parts they played. There is no question left in my mind that ALL these people were not innocently fooled. Some must have been for the case to be carried as far as it went, and it fed on that wishful thinking. But among many of her biggest backers, there was some heavy duty deception and plotting going on, and I cannot accept it was not intentional.

[Suzie]

Yeah, the "device" used to change her lips and nose! Was it a scalple...did she preform her own plastic surgery?

Suzie

[helenazar]

...  being in Romania, she had, due to the advice of her companion, tried all means to alter her facial features.  She received, from an intermediary, this person who died in Romania, a device (apparatus), that she used on her face and succeeded a little in changing the form of her nose and mouth.

This is great stuff.

[helenazar]

Yeah, the "device" used to change her lips and nose! Was it a scalple...did she preform her own plastic surgery?

Maybe it was a rifle butt as someone once suggested....

[Lemur]

I am surprised such a miraculous face altering device, if available in 1919, has not yet hit the late night 'call now and recieve a second one for FREE!' infomercial sale! Everyone will want one!

Yeah, the "device" used to change her lips and nose! Was it a scalple...did she preform her own plastic surgery?

Maybe it was a rifle butt as someone once suggested....

Oh I believe they still use that one, too. Just goes to show the contradictions and disparities in such a silly made up story.

[Forum Admin]

I must admit I chuckled out loud when I read the line needing translation about her "being drugged" her clothes switched and thrown in the canal...

[helenazar]

I am surprised such a miraculous face altering device, if available in 1919, has not yet hit the late night 'call now and recieve a second one for FREE!' infomercial sale! Everyone will want one!

Maybe the reason it hasn't is because it's meant to make one look worse, not better...  Like at least 5 years older...

[Annie]

I am surprised such a miraculous face altering device, if available in 1919, has not yet hit the late night 'call now and recieve a second one for FREE!' infomercial sale! Everyone will want one!

Maybe the reason it hasn't is because it's meant to make one look worse, not better...  Like at least 5 years older...

 

"Look, Alexander, I stretched my lips, now do I not look like myself anymore? I need to work more on my nose don't you think? Sure hope there aren't any Polish factory workers I'm going to resemble!"



That switcheroo clothes and thrown out of the car drugged story is a strange one too. What were they thinking? LOL! Wouldn't she have sank if she were drugged?

[Annie]

Though they were not always correct.  She would state that her English tutor Sydney Gibbes was deformed on one side of his body and walked with a limp.  This was completely inaccurate. She would reinterate it again after having actually met Mr. Gibbes some 30 years later and insisting that she would not recognize him because he did not have a limp -whether this is before or after he pronounced her a fraud I am unsure).  Harriet von Rathlef-Keilmann also stated that Anna recalled that "Ania" Anna Vyrubova (One of Anastasia's Mother's closest of friends) had red hair-which she did not.

Hey, Anna Vyrubova did walk with a limp after her 1915 train accident, was Gibbes a redhead? Maybe her informant got them mixed up!

As a former AA supporter I would used to point out that X-rays confirmed that she had suffered a head injury and thus her memory would be impaired-yet I now find it odd that someone suffering from a sort of amnesia would remember things which were absolutely incorrect or which never occurred.

Yes her supporters used that ever since the earliest days. But what is so self defeating about that excuse is that if it were true, how could anyone be sure of anything she said, even her being "Anastasia?"

Kransnoeselo, I wanted to ask you, as a former supporter, what is it that made you a former supporter? Was it the DNA, a combination of factors, or one specific incident? Please explain when you have time.
 

[Foxglove]

Anna went to a nurse and ask her if she saw anything striking when shown a photograph of some of the Grand Duchesses, when the nurse replied that she did not Anna proceeded to ask her  "Then you don't see any resemblance between the two of us?"

Hmm, so the Grand Duchess Anastasia, who previously used an apparatus on her face to change her nose and lips, suddenly decides to blow her cover, and proceeds to do so by waving around a phorograph of her "sisters" to ask a nurse if there is a resemblance? Right.

Next, Anastasia Nicolaiievna declared that her child remained with the Tschaiikovski family, and she prayed to have him returned to her as fast as possible.

Wasn't the original story that she put the child in a Romanian orphanage, and hence, why she never went back for him?

In August 1919, my husband, Alexander Tschaiikovski was injured on a street in Bucharest having been shot, and died three days later.  He was buried in a Catholic cemetery in Bucharest.

Did anybody ever take her back to that cemetery in Bucharest and have her locate the grave, if only to confirm that said person even existed?

This whole story now reads like a cheesy fan fiction story, written by an amateur writer, with our Grand Duchess as the tragic heroine. The soul survivor of the family massacre is shot and bayoneted, but survives thanks to a sympathetic soldier and his family. Despite her fragile physical condition, she manages to gives birth to a baby (possibly a result of rape), marry her rescuer/possible rapist, and settle down with her husband, child, and in-laws in Romania. However, like all substandard stories, our heroine must experience more angst and trial. Her husband is shot by enemy agents, and dies a painful death. Our heroine bravely abandons her child, leaves for Berlin, and magically manages to turn her rudimentary German into almost near fluency. Alas, she is followed by the same agents, drugged, and dumped into a canal, where she is fortunate to be rescued, and eventually taken to an asylum. Why hasn't Lifetime Television for Women snapped up this story as their movie-of-the-week all ready?

(Thank you, Kransnoeselo, for posting this here.)

[Annie]

Anna went to a nurse and ask her if she saw anything striking when shown a photograph of some of the Grand Duchesses, when the nurse replied that she did not Anna proceeded to ask her  "Then you don't see any resemblance between the two of us?"

Hmm, so the Grand Duchess Anastasia, who previously used an apparatus on her face to change her nose and lips, suddenly decides to blow her cover, and proceeds to do so by waving around a phorograph of her "sisters" to ask a nurse if there is a resemblance? Right.

Wasn't the original story that she put the child in a Romanian orphanage, and hence, why she never went back for him?

See how easy it is to find the holes and contradictions in this story! It was obviously made up by several people who couldn't keep their tale straight.

Did anybody ever take her back to that cemetery in Bucharest and have her locate the grave, if only to confirm that said person even existed?

Good one!

This whole story now reads like a cheesy fan fiction story, written by an amateur writer, with our Grand Duchess as the tragic heroine. The soul survivor of the family massacre is shot and bayoneted, but survives thanks to a sympathetic soldier and his family.

Exactly! It's like all the Star Wars fanfiction where people write 'alternate endings' so Padme can live and Anakin won't be Vader and they can all live happily ever after. If you don't like what happened, change it! But that doesn't make it real. (and of course it's much worse to do that with a real one than with a fake one like SW but the point is the same)

Alas, she is followed by the same agents, drugged, and dumped into a canal, where she is fortunate to be rescued, and eventually taken to an asylum. Why hasn't Lifetime Television for Women snapped up this story for a movie of the week?

(Thank you, Kransnoeselo, for posting this here.)

LOL! Its Days of Our Lives plot storyline is probably one of the reasons the story was so long lived, but it's still just fiction.

[Kransnoeselo]

Annie,

With regards to your question about my no longer supporting AA's claim to be Anastasia, I must say that it was a long and slow process for me to come to terms with the fact that she was not who she claimed and was infact Franziska Schanzkowska.  There are a few things which did eventually aid in turning the tide.  One of the things which always bothered me was Franziska's "favorite" brother Felix Schanzkowski's initial visit with AA.  Upon first laying eyes on AA he declared that she was his "sister".  Later within the visit he changed his mind.  Personally I think that at a glance (even after several years) I would have recognized my own sister-even if she had lost a lot of weight.  It was only when I read John Kleir's book within the past few years that I learned according to one witness who was present at the meeting between AA and Felix-that it was only after the two were left alone to talk that Felix changed his mind.  This combined with Felix's daughter's statements that her father told her that he knew all along that AA was his sister and a letter from one of his nieces who wrote to him that it wasn't everyday someone's sister is confused for royalty.  Also Franziska's sister who has lived with Franziska for a time in Berlin and thus was one of the last of the Schanzkowsi's to see Franziska, recognized AA as Franziska and demanded that AA recognize her.  She was outraged at AA's ambivalence after all she had done for her.  In a letter from a lawyer (who was opposing AA's court case in Germany) to Gertrude he stated that Gertrude was not the only sibling to recognize AA as Franziska, but the others had been fearful to admit it. It now seems very apparent to me that the Schanzkowski family knew all along of Franziska's identity and simply decided to stay out of the matter.

All of this plus the DNA tests from both the tissue sample from the Martha Jefferson hospital and the hair- matching each other and the blood sample from Karl Maucher all seemed too much for me to deny.  As well as the vehement denials of AA's identity from her tutor's Pierre Gilliard and Sydney Gibbes, Baroness Bux., Olga Alexandrovna, Princess Irene, etc. all of whom knew the real Anastasia exceedingly well and much better than Felix Dassel, Grand Duke Andreii or Princess Xenia Leeds of Russia (Leaving only the Botkins, and Lili Dehn. I believe the Botkins truly believed her to be Anastasia.  Lili Dehn's daughter apparently declared her mother was not as certain about AA's identity as was reported at the time of her visit.) 

Apparently Scotland Yard did a study of AA's and Anastasia's handwriting within the past ten years or so which concluded that the samples were not writen by the same hand. (It has been suggested that there were not as many samples as was used by Minna Becker during AA's trail.  Yet apparently Scotland Yard thought the samples sufficient enough to make an accurate comparison.)

The often cited study by Moritz Furtmayr used a photograph of Maria (rather than Anastasia) when comparring it with photographs of AA's right ear. He also mistakenly believed that AA's original "mug" shot had been reversed and thus the photograph did not depict her right ear but her left (Apparently to explain why her right ear did not match the right ear of Anastasia)  Yet if you look at the mug shot and look at how her hair is parted you can tell that it is not a mirror image since she always parted her hair in the same manner in the early 1920's.  Also when comparing that photograph of Anna's ear with others one can see that it is in fact her right ear and not her left.  Apparently the reason the ear did not match is simply because it is  not the same ear. cntd...

 

[Kransnoeselo]

The contradictory nature of many of AA's statements and the endless rationale used to explain her mistakes eventually get rather ridiculous. From reading early accounts one can see how her "story" morphed over the years.  Especially early on she spoke little and let others teach her all she needed to learn to adopt the Anastasia persona.   I do believe that she was injured in the accident whereby she killed her foreman at the Berlin munitions factory which caused her to suffer from head trauma and possible brain damage.  Certainly as a result AA/Franziska did suffer from some form of mental illness.  Many of her supporters deny any form of mental problem other than depression and ptsd ("Wouldn't you be depressed if everyone killed your family?" They ask)  But her symptoms were much greater and severe than simple depression.  AA was paranoid was constantly afraid that people were poisoning her or her friends.  She either lied or was delusional when telling stories of meeting Hitler, or her account that Felix Yussuppov tried to kill her during his visit with her in the 1920's, or when she continuously stated in later years that there had been doubles of the Imperial family and they were the ones killed, etc etc. 

AA was in numerous sanitorium through out her life.  First after being rescued from a suicide attempt and again when she was forced from Annie Jennings home in New York after several tirades (At least on one occassion storming around naked on a balcony).  Her mood was decidedly unstable and did not seem dictated by events but rather by unpredictable swings. She herself admitted this to Gleb Botkin by saying she had a "devil" within her and she assured him that she would "quarrel" with him, and she was right.

I am looking forward to hearing the DNA results from the remains most recently found in the forest surrounding Ekaterinburg. The results will have little bearing on my conclusion that AA was indeed Franziska but I do believe it will help me gain some closure on this issue which has haunted me since 1988.