Anne Frank and Me

Anne Frank and Me is a 2001 book by husband-wife writing team Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld. It follows the story of a teenage girl named Nicole Burns.

Plot summary

;Beginning:

In the beginning of the book, Nicole is a fifteen-year-old American high school student living in the year 2001. She lives in a very affluent household, and, like many of her peers, has a tendency to take for granted the lifestyle that she is able to enjoy.

A way to let out her feelings, Nicole has a website she calls Notes of GirlX. On the website, she talks about her best friend, her family, her enemies, and her love for Jack.

Nicole is not very absorbed in her studies, but is for some reason inexplicably fascinated with a Holocaust survivor who speaks to her English class. The Holocaust survivor's name was Paulette Littzer-Gold. Nicole feels irrepressibly drawn to the woman, and asks rather confusedly, "Have we met before?"

The woman seems equally taken with Nicole, but is unable to provide any kind of logical answer to the girl's question.

;Transition:

This experience is followed within days by a class trip to a local Holocaust museum. During the trip, Nicole and her peers are assigned roles as Jewish teens living during the Holocaust. Shortly after the activity begins, Nicole hears students shrieking, accompanied by some sort of banging noise that she quickly takes to be gunfire. (see school shooting)

She attempts to run along with the rest of her classmates, but is struck in the back while ascending a staircase. She sinks to the floor and loses consciousness.

;Paris, 1942:

When Nicole wakes, she is no longer in the United States in 2001, but is told that she is, in fact in Paris,and that the year is 1942. She is informed that her name is not Nicole Burns but Nicole Bernhardt, the name of the fictional Jewish girl assigned her by her English teacher back in the Holocaust museum.

Her parents in her dream are her english teacher and her princapal. Her sister, whom she calls Little Bit, is also in Nicole's dream, but Little Bit's name in the dream is Liz Bette.

The only thing Nicole is greatful for is that her best friend, Mimi, and her love, Jack, is in her dream. Jack and Mimi are twins in the dream, which is a big surprise for Nicole because they look nothing like each other. Also, Jack's name in the dream is Jacques, which Nicole finds romantic.

Jacques claimes his love for Nicole, which makes her think it really is a dream because in really life, Jack did not love her. He only liked her as a friend. So, Nicole starts to enjoy the dream.

;Nicole's life during World War II:

While initially telling herself that the world around her is a dream, Nicole comes to accept that she has always been Nicole Bernhardt and that her American life was an imagined hallucination.

Several of Nicole's friends are non-Jews, "Aryans" who oppose Hitler's policies and work to make sure that the Bernhardt family is able to continue living normally. However, following the German invasion of France, Nicole's situation gets dramatically worse. Eventually, she is forced into hiding, living in abominable conditions in an apartment above the streets of Paris.

From her refuge, Nicole writes a string of anti-Nazi letters for the French resistance that are smuggled out of the building and distributed throughout Paris by Mimi. In the letters, she calls herself GirlX like she did in her American dream.

The Bernhardt family is found out, and Nicole is eventually transported to Auschwitz, meeting Anne Frank aboard the train there. Nicole tries to remember how she knows Anne Frank, but it's hard for her to remember. Finaly, Nicole remembers. Nicole tells Anne that she had read her diary, but Anne says she left it back at the place she was hiding. Nicole tells Anne that they make copies of her diary all over the world, but the rest she can't remember.

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 beseeches Nicole to, "stay to the right." This is because the Nazi troops, who operated Auschwitz, sent those Jews they chose for slave labor to the right, while those who were designated for death were sent to the left.

In arguably the most moving scene of the book, Nicole and her sister approach the dividing point and wait for the SS soldiers to decide their fate. Liz-Bette is very ill, and is told by the Germans to go to the left, while Nicole is told to head right. Nicole becomes hysterical and begs to be allowed to accompany her sister. It is implied but not explicitly stated that Nicole knows she is walking directly into her own execution.

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 Jews 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. Her last words before succumbing to death are, "I love you, Liz-Bette."

;The Return:

Nicole wakes up and she is lying on a bench outside the museum. It had turned out that her school's rival school had set off firecrakers and when everyone was running out of the building, she bumped her head. Nicole was sure that the firecrakers were guns.

Nicole stays at the hospital for a few days, and then she is finally released. 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. Then, Nicole decideds to talk to the person who gave her the Holocaust name. Her english teacher, Ms. Zooms.

Ms. Zooms tells Nicole she made up her name by taking descriptions from other Holocaust children who did not survive. Even though Ms. Zooms gives her evidence she was never Nicole Bernhardt, Nicole does not except it.

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." Nicole wanted to call Mrs. Littzer-Gold right away, but she realizes it is late. Nicole decides to call her tomorrow.

The next day, Nicole finds out Mrs. Littzer-Gold had died over night. Nicole thinks that she will never know if she was in the Holocaust. Then, Nicole 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 believes that her experience in the Holocaust was all a dream.

After the funeral, Nicole decides to look 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, she gave the woman courage to move on.

Later, Nicole takes her little sister, Little Bit to a museum about Anne Frank. Little Bit doesn't know what the big deal is, but Nicole says, "We could have lived in the Holocaust. We could have known Anne Frank." So, Nicole and Little Bit go into the museum.

In the end, Nicole is changed forever.

The story was first a play and was adapted into a book.