Product Details
Free Press, October 2007
Trade Paperback, 240 pages
ISBN-10: 1416552219
ISBN-13: 9781416552215
Description
In 1989 Martin Lemelman videotaped his mother, Gusta, as she opened up about her childhood in 1930s Poland and her eventual escape from Nazi persecution. Mendel's Daughter, now in paperback and selected as one of the best books of 2006 by the Austin Chronicle, is Lemelman's loving transcription of his mother's harrowing testimony, bringing her narrative to life with his own powerful black-and-white drawings, interspersed with reproductions of actual photographs, documents and other relics from that era. The result is a wholly original, authentic and moving account of hope and survival in a time of despair.
Gusta's story opens with a portrait of shtetl life, filled with homey images that evoke the richness of food and flowers, of family and friends and of Jewish tradition. Soon, however, Gusta's girlhood is cut short as her family experiences Hitler's rise, rumors of war, invasion, occupation, round-ups and pogroms, forcing Gusta into flight and hiding.
Mendel's Daughter is Martin Lemelman's solemn and stirring testament to his mother's bravery and a celebration of her perseverance. The devastatingly simple power of a mother's words and a son's illustrations combine to create a work that is both intensely personal and universally resonant. Mendel's Daughter combines an unforgettable true story with elegant, haunting illustrations to shed new light on one of history's darkest periods.
"Mendel's Daughter strides bravely...into Maus's footprints and, against all odds, succeeds. Lemelman's first [book] is a tender, faithful retelling of his mother's Holocaust story. The routine details of shtetl life, family politics, brief moments of kindness amid devastating hardship, move us beyond clichés, beyond Good and Evil, to convey a powerful, tragic, human history. Ultimately -- miraculously -- about hope, not horror."
-- UPstreet magazine (UK)
"On virtually every page, Lemelman skillfully juxtaposes haunting pencil drawings, family photos and handwritten text. His unique contribution to Holocaust literature will doubtless educe comparisons to Maus yet many may find Lemelman's more realist work more approachable, immediate and, ultimately, unforgettable."
-- Booklist
"Mendel's Daughter . . . is a gritty eyewitness report on the great upheaval of eastern Europe in the 1930s and '40s, based on Lemelman's recordings of his mother in 1989 . . . a stark account of human weakness and fear, tragic missteps with fatal consequences, and unimaginable hardships as she survives for two years with two brothers in a hole in the ground . . . with a combination of charcoal drawings and photographs, he creates a sense both of an almost mythical time gone by and the very real lives that were snuffed out."
-- Publisher's Weekly
"This is totally original, not to say moving, account of what happened to many Jewish families at this period of history. And there is, at times, a prayer-like quality to this account of Gusta's unbelievable courage and her unflinching perseverance . . . A mother's words and a son's illustrations have combined to create a work of rare sensitivity. Martin Lemelman has achieved the seemingly impossible -- a children's book that tells of Jewish life in one of the darkest periods of their history . . . This is a gripping story and one beautifully told and drawn."
-- The Express (U.K)
