Felix Yussoupov
Felix met her in 1927 and pronounced her a 'frightful playactress' and a 'wretched creature who could not possibly be the daughter of the Tsar." "I claim categorically that she is not Anastasia Nicolaievna, but just an adventuress, a hysteric and a frightful playactress. I simply cannot understand how anyone can be in doubt of this. These pretenders ought to be gathered up and sent to live in a house somewhere." He had spoken to her in all four languages, Russian, English, French and German, and he reported she only answered him in German.
Are we talking about the same Felix who, when seeing a photo of AA's hands, said to Gleb Botkin: Where did you get that photo of her Majesty's hands?
The same Felix who later was willing to acknowledge AA against a cut of the alleged Tsar's fortune?
Prince Christoper of Greece
"The poor girl was a pathetic figure in her loneliness and ill health, and it was comprehensible enough that many of those around her let their sympathy over-rule their logic. ... She was unable to recognise people whom the Grand Duchess Anastasia had known intimately, and her descriptions of rooms in the different palaces and of other scenes familiar to any of the Imperial Family were often inaccurate."
(note: AA supporters claim his book was ghostwritten and he was really a supporter yet there is no proof at all of any such thing)
Why even mention prince Christopher? He never met AA. But, according to Gleb Botkin, he said about Olga that "She knows better than anybody that she is Anastasia."
Alexei Volkov
"the conduct of the people who surrounded Madame Tchiakovsky seemed to me very suspect. They intervened all the time, completed her inadequate answers, and excused all her errors under the pretext she was 'ill.'"
Which does not gainsay his statement that "I believe she is the Grand Duchess."
By the way, I have seen you use the above statement several times, but you have never given a source for it. May we please have it?
Sidney Gibbes
The English tutor of the Imperial children, Gibbes had seen them on a daily basis up until their separation at Ekaterinburg. Gibbes denounced Anderson outright. "She in no way resembles the true Grand Duchess Anastasia that I had known..I am quite satisfied that she is an imposter."
and also 'If that's Anastasia, I'm a Chinaman."
This is quite correct.
Earl Mountbatten
"I can assure you that there is not the remotest doubt that this woman is not my cousin. She was seen by all our closest mutual relations, all of whom declared there was no resemblance." He once told the BBC, strongly advising them against interviewing her and helping her supporters, who, he claimed, "simply wanted to get rich on the royalties of further books, magazine articles, plays, etc."
From Olga A's bio
Another one who never met AA.
When Olga entered the room, the woman lying on a bed asked a nurse: “Ist das die Tante?”[Is this the Aunt?] “That”, confessed Olga, “at once took me aback.
InHarriet Rathlef-Keilmann's version, AA did not say a word when Olga entered the room. Her eyes lit up, her face turned red, and she looked "radiantly happy"
This version is backed up by Herluf Zahle and AA's surgeon, Professor Serge Rudnev. The manuscript was later sent to Olga in Copenhagen for verification, and she returned it, saying that the description of the events were "quite correct".
My nieces knew no German at all.
And as we now know from their workbooks from school, they all studied German seriously.
Mrs Anderson did not seem to understand a word of Russian
Seeletter from Olga to Anatole Mordvinov where she states that "curiously enough, she seems to understand Russian, but prefers to answer in German."
All the same, my niece’s features could not possibly have altered out of all recognition. The nose, the mouth, the eyes were all different.”
P. 175
Even Gilliard could not get away from the fact that the eyes looked like the ones of the Grand Duchess.
Some Romanov photographs were shown to her, and there was not a flicker of recognition in her eyes.
Read Bella Cohen's article in the New York Times where she quotes Shura as talking about how AA recognized her in a photo even though her face was hidden behind a bell.
The Grand Duchess had brought a small icon of St Nicholas, the patron saint of the imperial family. Mrs Anderson lookes at it so indifferently that it was obvious the icon said nothing to her.
And, of course, a deadly ill person who was given morphine several times a day should have jumped for joy by seeing an icon that was a copy of the one hanging over her bed.
Olga Alexandrovna: “…That child was as dear to me as if she were my own daughter. As soon as I sat down by that bed in the Mommsen Nursing Home, I knew I was looking at a stranger… I had left Denmark with something of a hope in my heart. I left Berlin with all hope extinguished. "
And as we know, she told Herluf Zahle and Bella Cohen that "My head cannot grasp it, but my heart tells me the little one is Anastasia."
And later, she would write to AA: "I remember when we were together, and you stuffed me with coffee, tea and chocolate."
“Then again I heard that a party in Berlin, when she was offered some vodka, Mrs Anderson said : ‘How nice! It does remind me of the days at Tsarskoe Selo!” Vodka certainly would not have brought any such reminder to my niece… My nieces never touched either wine or spirits – and indeed how could they at their age?…”
So she heard this "at a party"? And you are the one to talk about hearsay.....
Here is where she explains how Anderson's 'memory' of geting the scar on her hand as "Anastasia" was wrong:
“…The mistakes she made could not be all attributed to lapses of memory. For instance, she had a scar on one of her fingers and she kept telling everybody that it had been crushed because of a footman shutting the door of a landau too quickly. And at once I remembered the incident. It was Marie, her elder sister, who got her hand hurt rather badly, and it did not happen in a carriage but on board the imperial train. Obviously someone, having heard something of the incident, had passed a garbled version of it to Mrs Anderson.
According to Shura, one of the Grand Duchesses got her finger crushed in a landau accident, but she could not say for sure which one anymore. However, Captain Sablin from the Standart remembered the accident well since he was there when it happened to Anastasia. Also Admiral Shilling's niece and Professor Berg remembered the accident well.
They pretend that she recognized me, but I want to tell you how it all happened: they had warned her of my visit. She herself acknowledged that they had said: 'On Tuesday you will be very happy. Someone is coming from Denmark.' Then, obviously, she could imagine the rest and wait for 'her aunt.' She was unable to reply to any of the small intimate questions which I put to her.
According to Harriet Rathlef-Keilmann, you know, the one who sent her manuscript to Olga for verification, wrote that "they sent in Olga after Gilliard to see if she would make a mistake and think it was Shura."
As far as the small intimate questions, read Bella Cohen's article in New York Times. It shows that AA mentioned rooms and names and trivial things that no Franziska would have known.
"But the whole story is palpably false. I was convinced then, as I am now, that it is so from beginning to end. Just think of the supposed rescuers - vanishing into thin air, as it were! Had Nicky's daughter been really saved, her rescuers would have known just what it meant to them. Every royal house in Europe would have rewarded them. Why, I am sure that my mother would not have hesitated to empty her jewel-box in gratitude. There is not one tittle of genuine evidence in the story."
From Harriet Rathlef-Keilmann's book: "I am so glad I came. Mama was so angry with me for going to Berlin. If I only had some money, I would do anything for the little one. But I don't have any, I have to earn my pocket money by painting."
"Our little one and Shura seem happy to have found each other again."
and of course, there's no need to even mention Gilliard or Ernst of Hesse because AA supporters call them 'liars.'
No need to. Gilliard was the one who made Olga come to Berlin, and then told Zahle that "we are leaving Berlin unable to say that she is NOT the Grand Duchess." Ernst of Hesse never saw her.
