Alias Anna by Susan Hood and Greg Dawson

Alias anna: A true story of outwitting the Nazis

“I don’t care what you do,” her father told her. “Just live.”

Zhanna and her baby sister Frina have a happy life in the small resort town of Berdyansk, Ukraine. Papa plays the violin and the family have a true love of music so it is natural that Zhanna and later her sister are sent to music lessons. The family are not wealthy but they do manage to buy a small piano and it is very clear, early on, that Zhanna is a gifted musician. She receives scholarships and begins to play at concerts. Then everything changes:

Happy times

for Zhanna and her family

were swallowed up

when a power-hungry dictator

named Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili

started to devour their country in the early 1930s.

He was better known as Joseph Stalin,

an alias he assumed meaning 'Man of Steel.'

Stalin had a plan for ridding the country

of the old ways and looking to the future. 

By 1935 the family are forced to flee their home and move to Kharkov a city of nearly one million people. "The Arshansky's home was not a house, but one room in a run-down apartment."

Luckily they still have their piano and both girls are accepted for scholarships which provide enough money so the family don't starve. In 1939 Stalin made a deal with Hitler that their countries "would not attack each other for the next ten years" but just two years later Hitler invaded Ukraine and for Zhanna, her sister, parents and grandparents, as Jews, we watch as their nightmare begins. 

Publisher blurb: The moving true story of how young Ukrainian Jewish piano prodigies Zhanna (alias “Anna”) and her sister Frina outplayed their pursuers while hiding in plain sight during the Holocaust. A middle grade nonfiction novel-in-verse by award-winning author Susan Hood with Greg Dawson (Zhanna’s son). She wouldn’t be Zhanna. She’d use an alias. A for Anna. A for alive. When the Germans invade Ukraine, Zhanna, a young Jewish girl, must leave behind her friends, her freedom, and her promising musical future at the world’s top conservatory. With no time to say goodbye, Zhanna, her sister Frina, and their entire family are removed from their home by the Nazis and forced on a long, cold, death march. When a guard turns a blind eye, Zhanna flees with nothing more than her musical talent, her beloved sheet music, and her father’s final plea: “I don’t care what you do. Just live.” 

A harrowing and remarkable story of strength and survival. Kirkus review

Hood tells Zhanna’s sto­ry through both free verse and a rich array of forms. One chap­ter uses the full alpha­bet as ini­tial let­ters of cat­e­gories for Stalin’s vic­tims. Ele­gies, haiku, cou­plets, and ter­cets, also cap­ture the essence of dif­fer­ent points through dif­fer­ent lens­es. The use of poet­ry is effec­tive, echo­ing in its com­plex­i­ty the music of a sin­gu­lar life caught in the chaos of history. Jewish Book Council

Awards:

• 2023 Winner of the Christopher Award
• 2023 Sydney Taylor Notable Book
• Finalist for the 2023 National Jewish Book Awards
• The 2022 Nerdies: Poetry and Novels in Verse
• The New York Public Library Best Books of 2022
• The Chicago Public Library Best Books of 2022

The verse format and harrowing narrative make this a quick read for reluctant and striving readers. VERDICT This powerful work of persistence and hope is highly recommended.   School Library Journal

Here is the web page for Susan Hood who wrote this book with Greg Dawson - son of Zhanna. Kisten to an audio sample from the beginning of this verse novel. Susan Hood is the author of Ada's Violin. 

This is a powerful true story told as a verse novel suitable for readers aged 13+. I am certain this story will linger with me for years to come partly because it is a true story but mainly because, even though things are utterly dreadful for these two sisters there is that all important (important in read life too) happy ending. I also loved all the refences to the music they played and the way Zhanna saved one precious piece of sheet music reminded me of another powerful story The Red Piano by Andre Leblanc illustrated by Barroux.

This book also contains a map, authors’ note, photographs, letters, afterword, list of music, historical note, poetry notes, sources and an extensive bibliography. In this interview we hear Greg Dawson and his mother Zhanna. Zhana died early in 2023 aged 95.

Read more here - Playing to live: Pianist survived Holocaust by performing for Nazis

The piece of music that sustained Zhanna was Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp Minor op.66 by Chopin. There is a full list of all the music mentioned in Alias Anna at the back of the book.

The five sheets of music of Chopin’s “Fantasy Impromptu” that she tucked under her clothes and survived with her. “How she preserved five sheets of music is beyond me,” Greg Dawson says. “You know how perishable paper is.” The sheet music was Zhanna Arshanskaya Dawson’s treasure; it kept her going all those years when there was so little hope for survival. It is safely locked away now in a bank safety deposit box, something for newer generations of her family to look at – and remember a survivor.

I would read Alias Anna alongside these:

Beyond Belief

To Hope and Back

Let me Whisper you my Story

We are Wolves

When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr

Just as I set out to re-read When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit I read a newspaper article about how this book had been given to a little six year old child in her school library. The parents were naturally quite upset. Firstly because this is not a book for such a young child and secondly because they were not yet ready to talk to their child about her devastating family connection with the holocaust. It makes me sad to read about school libraries that lend books without care. I am always so concerned to match children with books and I am not afraid to tell a child to wait until they are a little older if a book is meant for a more mature audience.

Anna is living in Germany in 1933. Hitler is on the rise so wisely her parents decide to move to Switzerland. Anna's father is a journalist and of course considered dangerous to the regime. Essentially this is a story of being a refugee, of the years leading up to World War II and the rise of Hitler. There are small references to the persecution of the Jews and one tiny paragraph that mentions a concentration camp but overall this is not a harrowing holocaust story certainly nothing like The Boy in striped pyjamas by John Boyne or Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli or the Once, Now and Then trilogy of Morris Gleitzman.

When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit is a quiet, personal and gentle and would be of interest to Senior Primary students. I would follow this up by reading The Little Riders by Margaretha Shemin, Dancing on the Bridge of Avignon by Ida Vos, Fredrich by Hans Peter Richter, and picture books such as Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocenti and Let the celebrations begin by Margaret Wild.

It is also interesting to discover Judith Kerr is the author of all the picture books about Mog the cat and that When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is really about her real life experiences. You can read more abou the plot and these connections here.