This quote comes from one of the letters of the sculptor, Oskar's Grandfather:
"I'm thinking of Anna, I would give anything never to thing about her again, I can only hold on to the things I want to lose" (113). Here we can see that Anna obviously causes the sculptor a lot of pain, such that he would give everything to forget her.
The addition of the new character, Anna, helps to represent the reccurring theme of unexplained memories that arouse some form of strong emotion from the reader.
"'The way you handed me that napkin reminds me of--' but I couldn't finish the sentence, her name wouldn't come, I tried again, it wouldn't come, she was locked inside me...(16)"
Anna was killed in the fire-bombing of Dresden.
Another curious detail about the entire Anna backstory is that Oskar's grandmother is never really directly compared to her. The closest thing to a direct trait they share is the way the sculptor interacts with them. But instead of the sculptor looking at the similarities between the sisters, he shapes her differently in order to actually make Oskar's grandmother look like Anna.
- Anna was the sister of Oskar's grandmother to make it clear. Oskar's grandfather really loved Anna, that was one of the reasons he left Oskar's grandmother. "I'm sorry for everything. For having said goodbye to Anna when maybe I could have saved her and our idea, or at least died with them."
Anna was pregnant when she died, which caused Thomas Schell or Oskar's Grandfather, to retreat into himself more due to fear of loss.
More information relating to Anna, Oskar's grandfather and grandmother, is that after Anna died in the fire-bombings Oskar's now grandparents came to America and found each other one day and to the reader it seemed like the two people didnt know each other but as learned later, the two have history which is that Anna and Oskar's grandfather were in love.
Anna is Oskar's great aunt, older the sister of Oskar's Grandmother