Anne Frank and Me

Anne Frank and Me is a 2001 novel by husband-wife writing team Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld. Inspired by the life of Anne Frank, it follows the story of a teenage girl named Nicole Burns. The story was adapted as a play in 1996 in New York City, written and directed by Cherie Bennett.^[1]

Plot summary

In the beginning of the book, Nicole is a very affluent household fifteen-year-old American high school student living in the year 2001, and takes her lifestyle for granted. She has a website she calls Notes of GirlX. On the website, she talks about her life and frustrations. Absorbed in her studies, she becomes fascinated with a Holocaust survivor who speaks to her English class, named Paulette Littzer-Gold. Nicole feels drawn to the woman, and asks if they have previously met. The woman also feels an affinity for Nicole.

The class takes a trip to a local Holocaust museum. During the trip, Nicole and her peers are assigned roles as Jewish teens living during the Holocaust. After the activity begins, Nicole hears students shrieking and gunfire. She attempts to run along with the rest of her classmates, but is struck in the back while ascending a staircase and loses consciousness.

When Nicole wakes, she finds herself in Paris in 1942. She is told that she is Nicole Bernhardt, the name of the fictional Jewish girl assigned her by her English teacher back in the Holocaust museum. Her family in the dream consists of her English teacher, Ms. Zoom, her principel, and her sister Elizabeth a.k.a "Little Bit" (known as Liz-Bette in the dream.) Jack who she had a crush on in 2001, is in the dream. His name is now Jacques and he claims he loves Nicole, which makes her think it really is a dream because in real life, Jack did not love her. As months past, she tells herself that the 2001 world is a dream and accepts that she is Nicole Bernhardt.

Several of Nicole's friends are non-Jews who oppose Hitler's policies and protect the Bernhardt family. However, following the German invasion of France, Nicole's situation gets dramatically worse. Eventually, she is forced to hide in a rundown apartment in the streets of Paris. From her refuge, Nicole writes a string of anti-Nazi letters for the French resistance. In the letters, she calls herself GirlX like she did in her American dream.

The Bernhardt family is betrayed by Jacques, and Nicole is transported to Auschwitz with Liz-Bette, and she meeting Anne Frank aboard the train. Nicole remembers that she read Anne's diary and tells her, but Anne says she left it where she had been hiding. Nicole tells Anne that they make copies of her diary all over the world. Upon arrival at the camp, Nicole remembers what happens when all the people read Anne's diary. Anne is far away in the crowd, so Nicole shouts out to Anne that her diary wins the hearts of millions.

Later, a fellow Jew tries to save Nicole by sending her to be slave labor in the camp instead of being sent to be killed. Nicole and Liz-Bette, who is very ill, are to be split up, Nicole to live and Liz-Bette to die. Nicole becomes hysterical and begs to be allowed to accompany her sister. The Germans, after mocking Nicole's devotion to Liz-Bette, allow her to go with the young girl. Nicole tearfully thanks them and then walks with Liz-Bette to the "showers."

Liz-Bette is frenzied with terror, but Nicole calms her, telling her that it will be nice to be clean after so many days in the train. The girls are then locked in the shower, and as people around them fall dead from the toxic gas, Nicole bids Liz-Bette to imagine that she is Scarlett O'Hara, dancing in a beautiful blue gown. Nicole then leads her sister in a Jewish prayer, as she whispers she loves Liz-Bette and they succumb to death.

Nicole wakes up, lying on a bench outside the museum. She finds out that other students had set off firecrackers which sent everyone running, when she bumped her head. Nicole stays at the hospital for a few days, and afterwards her life goes on, but she can't figure out if she was really in the Holocaust, or if it was just a bad dream. She decideds to talk to her English teacher who had assigned her the Holocaust name.

Even though the names that were given to the students were children who did not survive the Holocaust, Ms. Zooms cannot convince Nicole that she is not Nicole Bernhardt. Later, Nicole believes Paulette Littzer-Gold, the Holocaust survivor, who visited her school was the same woman at the Concentration Camp who told her to "stay to the right." The next day, Nicole finds out Mrs. Littzer-Gold had died overnight. She decides to go to Mrs. Littzer-Gold's funeral. Nicole sees a picture of her, but she looks nothing like the woman she thought she was. Nicole sadly accepts that she was never Nicole Bernhardt and that she never lived during the Holocaust.

After the funeral, Nicole looks at the things that belonged to Mrs. Littzer-Gold that are at the altar. She notices that a letter she owned was the same letter that Nicole wrote to any person who found it. The letter talked about how no one could silence her. Not only did Nicole find out she lived in the Holocaust, but she gave Mrs. Littzer-Gold the courage to live. Nicole takes her little sister, Little Bit to a museum about Anne Frank.

The play is written by Cherie Bernett as well. The play is slightly different from the book in its beginning, as well as in its resolution. In the beginning of the play, Nicole is practicing a dance with her friends that they will perform at the school dance that weekend. Her friend Suzanne asks her about the assignment they are reading for English class, Anne Frank. Nicole's father is a scientist and doesn't believe in anything he cannot prove using his science, so Nicole is not even sure if the Holocaust existed. Later, at the dance, Jack asks Nicole to dance. However, he only does this to inform her that he has a crush on Suzanne. Nicole freaks out and runs into the street, getting hit by a car. When she wakes up she is in 1942, Paris. Her family is Jewish, and Jack (now Jacques) is madly in love with her. After getting over the original confusion, Nicole enjoys her Paris life, even though it is a restricted one. Eventually her family goes into hiding, and even later in the play they are found out as being Jewish. On the train to Auschwitz, Nicole meets Anne Frank. They talk for a while, Nicole saying that she has read Anne's diary. When they get to Auschwitz, Nicole, her younger sister, mother, and Anne are all sent into the gas chambers. They pray a traditional Jewish prayer while the gas comes on. In the next scene, Nicole has woken up and is in a hospital bed. She seems to be thoroughly confused by her experience, questioning which life is or was reality. She is also now convinced that the Holocaust was real and should be remembered forever.

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