Why Was AA Afraid To Be Found?

[Malenkaya]

This question just popped into my head, and I think we could end up with some interesting theories.

Annie mentioned in another thread that AA (who she believes was FS) wanted so badly to throw away her previous identity as FS, and was "lucky" to have someone say she looked like a Grand Duchess.

If I wanted to end my life and was unsuccessful, and then decided I would never be identified or found out by anyone (knowing there were people out there who would know who I was) the last thing I would ever do is claim the identity of someone as famous as one of the daughters of the Tsar.

AA may have been many things, but I don't think stupid was one of them.  You don't claim to be someone famous if you want to hide from your real identity for the rest of your life.   Yet it's assumed that FS, as AA, was doing just that by claiming to be AN.

When she was first pulled out of the canal, she said she didn't want to be identified because she was afraid she would be found out and killed.  This is long before anyone put a photo of the Romanovs under her nose and said she looked like a Grand Duchess.  (Yet this fits the idea of her being Anastasia.  Could we call this the first hint at the identity she later claimed?)  As far as we know, FS had no reason to fear for her life if she was found out.  She may not have wanted to be found, but not for fear of being killed.

So if AA was FS, why was she afraid for her life from the day she was pulled out of the canal?

[AGRBear]

When Schwabe discovered AA,  he immediately requested guards be placed at Dalldorf to protect AA.  And,  there were guards who were there to protect her at Dalldorf.

AGRBear

[Annie]

Think about this, if she was Anastasia, and she was in fear of her life, why would she make such a big public deal of herself? I always thought if AN did survive she'd want to live in obscurity under an assumed name. The last thing she'd want is international attention. And remember AA set herself up for that by having the lawsuit. Nobody forced fame on her.

[AGRBear]

AA did not ask for the Russian guards.

Schwabe requested them and they were sent to Dalldorf.

Evidently,  the Russian community felt there was a danger.

AGRBear

[rskkiya]

I was under the impression that it was not so much AA's desire to not be found as it was her desire to stop being in pain!  AA(FS?) was deeply unhappy. She had lost her fiance, and was living in a city in chaos. Why do so so many people try suicide - Not really to die but to end their suffering!
  AA suffered and she did not wish to suffer anymore - if that meant not being AA anymore then so be it. She was now someone else not AA/FS or anyone else in particular -hence her initial refusal to communicate at the asylum.
I don't think that she set out to become "a claimant" I think that it just rather developed over time.

[Malenkaya]

Page 6 of The Riddle Of Anna Anderson, by Peter Kurth:

But the next day she broke down and admitted she was frightened for her life: "Indicates that she does not want to give her name because she fears persecution.  Gives impression of fearful reticence.  More fear here than reticence.

So again I ask the question: If AA was FS, why was she afraid for her life?  This is very different than being afraid of having her identity discovered because she didn't want to go back to being who she was.  She was afraid revealing her identity would lead to her death.  

WHY?

[jeremygaleaz]

Page 6 of The Riddle Of Anna Anderson, by Peter Kurth:

But the next day she broke down and admitted she was frightened for her life: "Indicates that she does not want to give her name because she fears persecution.  Gives impression of fearful reticence.  More fear here than reticence.

So again I ask the question: If AA was FS, why was she afraid for her life?  This is very different than being afraid of having her identity discovered because she didn't want to go back to being who she was.  She was afraid revealing her identity would lead to her death.  

WHY?

I think it's just a sympathy ploy for the new role she was acting out. Or she just suffered from  mental paranioa. I don't think there is a deep meaning there though.

[etonexile]

Agrees with zackattack...she was mad...in a clever way....

[Annie]

And because she was mentally off, and because she wanted to be an actress, it was easier for her to play and live in a fantasy world! Like Pete Townshend once said, 'sickness will surely take the mind where minds can't usually go'

[AGRBear]

If she believed she was GD Anastasia or if she was pretending to be GD Anastasia,  it would seem to me that in either role,  she would have to be or  pretend to be "frighten for her life".

Why?

The CHEKA, Reds,  communists and their leaders didn't want the world to be reminded of their dastardly deeds which occured in the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg,  July 16/17  1918.

Most of you are not old enough to remember all the murders and clandestine activities which occured in Russia, Europe and accross the world in the name of the new USSR.    If you pick up old mystery books the word "Bolshevik" was usually the base for the murder while the victim was usually an agent of Great Britian, Germany, especially around Berlin, and let's not forget New York and sometimes Canada.

The word "Bolshevik" was later exchanged for the words "communist"  or "KGB".

The Bolshevik front organization known as the TRUST was used for all kinds of  dastardly crimes, including murders, until Sidney Riley, the British Ace of Spies,  revealed the CHEKA agents were taking every word of the meetings of the Whites who though the TRUST was an anti-Bolshevik organization to the CHEKA leader who told Lenin and  Stalin all the secrets of the Whites.

Yes, indeed,  if the real GD Anastasia or a claimant surfaced who appeared genuine,  they were in great danger.

What we do not know is if AA was on her own or part of a bigger skeme.  If she was just some small skeme looking for pennies, nickles and dimes,  we don't know.  If she was part of some larger policital skeme,  we have no idea.   If she was part of a larger skeme she could have been a CHEKA  agent or German agent or Polish agent.   Why would Russia or German or anyone else bother?   You have to place yourself back in that time period of 1920.  People didn't know what we know today.   Some people thought there were millions and millions of dollars to be discovered.   If it wasn't money,  it could have been a way to prevent a "real GD Anastasia" from popping up or being viewed as a honest claimant.  Afterall,  look at the terrible time AA had.  

The real GD Anastasia could have told the world what really happen that night.  

It appears to me that they [CHEKA, Ural Soviets, Moscow Soviets, Lenin, Stalin, communists, GPU, KGB] have gone through a lot of trouble making sure no one knew the complete truth.

Remember, the CHEKA stole documents even from Sokolov, the investogator,  in Paris,  I think it was, before he died.

Those who didn't believe AA was GD Anastasia, like Gilliard even told the judges in the trial of AA that they destroyed evidence.

As it is,  only nine bodies were found in the mass grave in Pig's Meadow.

Two bodies are still missing.

One of them is the daughter of Nicholas II.

AGRBear

[AGRBear]

Greg talking about the mass grave in Pig's Meadow:

....[in part]....


....I do think the grave was opened perhaps twice-I suspect once in the late 1920s, under Stalin's orders (at the same time as Anna Anderson began to get a lot of publicity in the West), perhaps to see how many bodies really were there, and again sometime between 1979 or 1980 and 1991...
Greg King

If this is true and Stalin order the grave open to find out if GD Anastasia was in the grave,  wonder what he thought when it was discovered that one female was missing.  Did he think Yurovsky's explaination of the two missing bodies was true or false?

So many questions and so few answers.

Anyway,  the reason I posted Greg's quote is because this shows to me that Stalin may have been far more interested in AA's claim than some of the posters believe that he was.

AGRBear

[rskkiya]

Here is a ghoulish question...
IF the grave was opened in the 1920's (and I cannot entirely agree with GK on that) then what state were the remains... would there have been any flesh left?

Sorry if that's a distasteful or nasty question.

rs

[Louis_Charles]

If she believed she was GD Anastasia or if she was pretending to be GD Anastasia,  it would seem to me that in either role,  she would have to be or  pretend to be "frighten for her life".

Why?

The CHEKA, Reds,  communists and their leaders didn't want the world to be reminded of their dastardly deeds which occured in the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg,  July 16/17  1918.

Most of you are not old enough to remember all the murders and clandestine activities which occured in Russia, Europe and accross the world in the name of the new USSR.    If you pick up old mystery books the word "Bolshevik" was usually the base for the murder while the victim was usually an agent of Great Britian, Germany, especially around Berlin, and let's not forget New York and sometimes Canada.

The word "Bolshevik" was later exchanged for the words "communist"  or "KGB".

The Bolshevik front organization known as the TRUST was used for all kinds of  dastardly crimes, including murders, until Sidney Riley, the British Ace of Spies,  revealed the CHEKA agents were taking every word of the meetings of the Whites who though the TRUST was an anti-Bolshevik organization to the CHEKA leader who told Lenin and  Stalin all the secrets of the Whites.

Yes, indeed,  if the real GD Anastasia or a claimant surfaced who appeared genuine,  they were in great danger.

What we do not know is if AA was on her own or part of a bigger skeme.  If she was just some small skeme looking for pennies, nickles and dimes,  we don't know.  If she was part of some larger policital skeme,  we have no idea.   If she was part of a larger skeme she could have been a CHEKA  agent or German agent or Polish agent.   Why would Russia or German or anyone else bother?   You have to place yourself back in that time period of 1920.  People didn't know what we know today.   Some people thought there were millions and millions of dollars to be discovered.   If it wasn't money,  it could have been a way to prevent a "real GD Anastasia" from popping up or being viewed as a honest claimant.  Afterall,  look at the terrible time AA had.  

The real GD Anastasia could have told the world what really happen that night.  

It appears to me that they [CHEKA, Ural Soviets, Moscow Soviets, Lenin, Stalin, communists, GPU, KGB] have gone through a lot of trouble making sure no one knew the complete truth.

Remember, the CHEKA stole documents even from Sokolov, the investogator,  in Paris,  I think it was, before he died.

Those who didn't believe AA was GD Anastasia, like Gilliard even told the judges in the trial of AA that they destroyed evidence.

As it is,  only nine bodies were found in the mass grave in Pig's Meadow.

Two bodies are still missing.

One of them is the daughter of Nicholas II.

AGRBear

Of course, a reasonable explanation for this could be one of the following:

(1) They --- the dastardly Bolsheviks, CHEKA, Soviets --- knew that Anna Andersen was not the Grand Duchess Anastasia, and therefore left her alone because of the dissension she sowed within the emigre community.
(2) They --- the dastardly Bolsheviks, CHEKA, Soviets --- were unable to kill this one woman, despite the fact that she spent most her time in vulnerable places like asylums or apartments in big cities (New York, Berlin). But despite their incredible abilities for evil, which allowed them to murder untold millions of Whites, kulaks, and God knows how many others, they were unable to kill Anna Andersen because of her . . . luck? Skill? You imply that if the Bolsheviks  believed she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia, then wouldn't they have been trying to kill her? Of course, they knew Olga Alexandrovna, Ksenia Alexandrovna, Nicholas Nicholaievitch and various other surviving Grand Dukes and Duchesses actually were who they said they were, and all of them died in their beds, so perhaps Anna's fear was a little, um . . . theatrical. Except for the highly suspect account of Felix Yussoupov trying to kill her given in the highly suspect Lovell book, is there evidence that attempts were made upon Andersen's life? Ever?

(3) During the visits to the gravesite about which you speculate, the bodies of Alexei and Anastasia may have been discovered and removed. Why not? It is not only the daughter of the Tsar that is missing, it is a son, and no one has credibly claimed to be him.

And finally, and I am sorry to say it, but the overwhelming image one gets of the terribles times suffered by Anna Andersen is that they were self-imposed. She bit more hands that fed her than a junkyard dog. I know she suffered physical illness, and I exclude that, but look at the list of people that she took charity from and then rejected.

Simon

[Elisabeth]

Page 6 of The Riddle Of Anna Anderson, by Peter Kurth:

But the next day she broke down and admitted she was frightened for her life: "Indicates that she does not want to give her name because she fears persecution.  Gives impression of fearful reticence.  More fear here than reticence.

So again I ask the question: If AA was FS, why was she afraid for her life?  This is very different than being afraid of having her identity discovered because she didn't want to go back to being who she was.  She was afraid revealing her identity would lead to her death.  

Yes, why was she afraid for her life? When she'd just tried to kill herself?!? That’s a bit of a contradiction, isn’t it?

Anyway, if you look at the actual quote from the doctors at Dalldorf, it says not that she feared for her life (this is Peter Kurth’s conclusion) but that she feared "persecution." That’s actually quite different from living in fear that someone’s going to kill you. "Persecution" can mean just about anything. Was AA suffering from paranoia? Or was she just afraid that her family was going to track her down and demand she start supporting herself again, when she was in no condition, physically or mentally, to do so? (After all, she insisted to the doctors that all of her relatives were dead.) We simply don’t know.

What we do know is that it is highly unlikely the Bolsheviks were after an obscure Fraulein Unbekannt when they were busy fighting a civil war.

[Rachael89]

The frightened for her life comment is rather odd after trying to kill herself. But it's probably something to do with the way she thought her life could end at the hands of different people (even if the fears were unfounded.)

Rachael