Estelle Nadel

First sentence: Will I ever be free?

Premise/plot: The Girl Who Sang is a MEMOIR [nonfiction autobiography] in graphic novel format. It is set primarily during the Second World War, but the memoir continues through some turbulent aftermath years. After the war, the family of siblings emigrate to the United States. But there is no magical, warm and fuzzy happily ever after story. Love sometimes isn't enough to keep a family of siblings together.

My thoughts: I loved, loved, loved, loved this one. I don't read many graphic novels--fiction or nonfiction. But this one is a MUST. I found it compelling and haunting. It was SO well done. I have read plenty of books about the Holocaust and the Second World War. I've read fewer graphic novels, however, this is a powerful format for storytelling. Perhaps the story will impact readers more by being in this format.… (plus d'informations)

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through NetGalley. Content warning for antisemitism, including antisemetic violence, murder, and genocide.)

Enia Feld was not quite five years old when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Conditions would gradually deteriorate over the next several years, both in Enia's small town of Borek, and across Europe. Her father Reuven and oldest siblings - brother Moishe and sister Sonjia - were conscripted to work in a refinery, leaving the family's fields untended. Jews were forced to wear the Star of David in public, and their homes were ransacked by Nazis, who stole anything of value.

When the Gestapo surrounded the refinery and started separating the workers into two groups, Sonjia slipped home just long enough to warn her mother and younger siblings to run. Enia never saw her - or Reuven and Moishe - again; they later learned that those prisoners in the right line, including Reuven and Sonjia, were taken by train to Auschwitz, where they were murdered upon arrival. The Felds took refuge in the attic of a friendly villager they knew only as Pudlina, while the Reiss family - Enia's aunt, uncle, and cousin - hid in the attic of another neighboring family, the Kurowskas. Pudlina, like most of the villagers, was poor - so, to feed her family, mom Chaya ventured out several nights a week in search of food. One night, she did not return, leaving Enia and her remaining brothers, Shia and Minashe, orphans.

Minashe eventually goes off on his own, hoping to pass as a gentile, while Enia and Shia are forced to move in with their relatives at the Kurowskas' - thanks to one of Pudlina's hostile neighbors, and after narrowly escaping death in the same jail their mother perished in. After several years in hiding - and just as Enia and her family were about to undertake a risky relocation due to a leaky roof - the Soviet army won control of Borek. Enia had to be carried out of the Kurowskas's attic, her legs atrophied from years of inactivity.

The Felds' troubles were far from over, however: after the Russian forces withdrew, gangs of Polish teens started harassing and even assaulting their Jewish neighbors. Enia, Shia, and Minashe left Borek, hoping to make it to Palestine; instead, they were able to take a train as far as Budapest. From there, they paid a smuggler to get them into Austria, where they settled in the Displaced Persons Camp, controlled by American Allied Forces. After hearing her sing, a Black American soldier suggested to Enia that she consider applying for relocation to America. Several fraudulent x-rays later, Enia and Shia arrived in Ellis Island, where they were met by Minashe, who had traveled ahead.

Against all odds, the siblings managed to stick together - or reunite - throughout the war. However, it soon became apparent that Shia and Minashe couldn't care for Enia - now named Estelle - and she was adopted by an American couple, Minnie and Nienman Nadel. When Estelle was sixteen, Minnie - now widowed - moved the family to California, where Estelle spent the next forty-three years, marrying and starting a family of her own. She stayed in touch with Shia and Minashe - now Steve and Mel; along with extended family, eventually they traveled back to Poland to visit their home. Inspired by her daughter-in-law Hester, Estelle decided to share her story with high school and college students around the country.

THE GIRL WHO SANG: A HOLOCAUST MEMOIR OF HOPE AND SURVIVAL is part of Estelle's effort to ensure that her story - and the stories of millions like her - lives on, even after she's gone. It's a heartbreaking memoir of survival and loss; that the story is told through a child's eyes makes it that much more poignant. The artwork has a sort of soft, childlike, innocent quality to it, which really underscores some of the more violent and brutal scenes, such as Chaya's assassination in a Polish jail. Certain scenes are sure to stay with me forever, such as when Estelle's cousin Mala points out that they can see both their houses from their hiding place in the Kurowskas' attic.

Perhaps the most affecting part - besides the siblings' ultimate, post-war separation, despite all that they'd overcome - is the repeated kindness of strangers, presented in a matter-of-fact manner despite the bravery and risk these acts entailed. From the four Polish gentiles who hid Enia and several of her relatives for years, to the Polish warden who deliberately placed Enia and Shia in a basement jail cell so that they might escape out the ground floor window, the ability for everyday people to engage in acts of heroism never ceases to awe me.

If anything, this juxtaposition underscores the more everyday senseless acts of cruelty, such as the Polish teens who betrayed Chaya for a bounty, and the neighbors who reported Pudlina.

One unexpected motif is the surprise of small coincidences, with consequences both good and bad. The significance of the book's title doesn't really hit home until the final scenes, but it's worth the wait.… (plus d'informations)