Almost Anastasia: The Life of Franziska Schanzkowsky

Almost Anastasia tells the story of Franziska Schanzkowsky, the former factory worker who convinced royals, courtiers, and forensic experts that she was actually the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of Nicholas II and sole survivor of the 1918 massacre at Ekaterinburg. DNA analysis has established who she really was, but once that mystery was solved the real mystery began—how did she do it? Why did she do it? What would it be like to step into someone else's life and live it forever? A work of narrative nonfiction drawn from original documents (some never before translated into English) and interviews with the people who knew her, Almost Anastasia follows Franziska from the streets of Berlin to the castles of deposed royalty, from Jazz Age New York to Nazi Germany and beyond. It is a tale of mystique, madness, and one woman’s determination to fool the world.