Having worked 30 years with many those with English as a new language, or those self learned, I decided to offer understanding to scorpioboy's post so it may lend better understanding to what tries to convey. I hope it allows both sides on this thread, to come to a better understanding of helping to receive and in that of offering exchanges of communication, to be without further feelings of anyone feeling distanced from the forum. Thanks in advance. Here is what I managed to understand from Scorpioboy's prior posting.
Quote with corrections: This is my first time on this site. I purposely went to this topic. For some years, I have been an AA supporter and a Romanov devotee in general. I have read the wondrous tales of some people here and I am gob smacked. What you have to do, is look at this amazing topic with an open mind and soul. To fall into "she was told", is quite ignorant. It was first clearly established, that as a so-called fraud, she would have been found out much earlier and under hypnosis on would have easily damasked her. To put it this way, largely, we have romanticized the life of Anastasia a prankster and imp. We refuse to believe that a 15 yr old innocent imperial child, used to etiquette and shielded from the world, suddenly thrust into traumatic circumstances, horrible and brutal, and much more, we will never know. Any child that was cocooned into a world that was idyllic, who was suddenly faced with brutality and horrible facets of humanity, would undoubtedly change. Even memories and speech would change. It is a proven fact that some people suffer tremendously from such trauma. The fact that AA suffered mental illness should not surprise anyone. The fact she refused to speak Russian. Also could understand, and she did have knowledge of Russian and talked sometimes words in private, in Russian. I have no purpose to argue and create any anger.. but always in my heart, I have felt that if this was truly the Grand Duchess, how sad and tragic it was for her. Losing everyone she held dear and burdened with "proving" herself, the trauma of memories remembered and lost. Mental illness in Imperial Circles was widely known. Another point, I think as a whole, we owe it to her memory, never to flatly refute the possibility. What I truly believe is that people will not credit AA, as it is too confronting. Here was a lady scarred physically and mentally. yes she had changed. But to many she hadn't..and the fact "she was told" was debunked very early on. Some of the real facts we will never know, as she was tested privately with questions we will never hear.. So on other claimant could find out. I have read many books on AA..May I add strongly, that she could not have been "Told. Retainers and Courtiers did not enter the private sanctum of the mauve boudoir for example, and if indeed, she was so clever why didn’t she use all she knew? Simple if you were she, you would be so very tired of proving yourself and almost give up. She was recognized by her Aunt Irene, almost instantly, but AA was so nervous and overwhelmed, that she cried and couldn’t go on.. These are very human traits. She could have easily used her memories and whatever she was supposedly told, but she did not. In the end, she said: “I am who i am, my mother and fathers daughter". I think we owe it to posterity to keep an open mind "it is easy to think that the world, it is simple and romantic but it isn’t. Just imagine if she was Anastasia? Living with that all her life.. She was content to know that she was who she was..and frankly how are we ever to know?? ahhh u hark! [Meaning you listen or pay attention] DNA.....a German group called it inconclusive....and even by today’s standards, it isn’t fool proof...and this brings me to a point i will bring up. Throughout history documents and facts have been altered and or falsely. Is it not plausible..that the small intestine that was tested wasn’t AA’s ? I mean frankly after years sitting in a hospital, couldn’t it be switched? A large contingent would be embarrassed and highly put out that it was indeed Anastasia and best put to rest. The fact that she may have survived would be utterly embarrassing...We will never know all the truth...You see,...if she was indeed this other woman, who by the way, family members said otherwise, her fraudulent behavior would have fallen through...All other claimant's faultered..How may I ask, can a peasant as she claimed to be, know about small details in places like Livadia that even retainers.. never knew..not, even secret Imperial stuff....That wasn’t meant to be known... No....royalty believed her and royalty did not, and wasn’t in the habit of dealing with frauds....She never wavered..even, not even under tests galore...even Lord Louis Mountbatten,. her ardent enemy, said in the end that he wasn’t sure...Dear Aunt Olga also relented and said she was: similar: All in all, its sad. if it was she..She had a lonely and difficult life...I myself, am open to the belief, that her Imperial Highness survived...The fairytale has ended.. Many wish her to remain the same Princess. However, saying she died in 1918 is reckless...How are any of us really to judge or to ever know the truths? We love the romance and pomp of the Romanov era...Lets not forget that these people were human. and with all that it implies..... End Quote
