Monday, May 14, 2007

I WAS A CHILD OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS by Bernice Eisenstein (2006)

This graphic memoir distills, through text and illustration, Eisenstein's memories of her 1950s childhood in Toronto with her Yiddish-speaking parents, whose often unspoken experiences of war were nevertheless always present. Remarkably, her parents met in Auschwitz , near the end of the war and were married shortly after Liberation.

With poignancy and searing honesty, Eisenstein explores with ineffable sadness the bittersweet humour her childhood growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust.I was especially moved by her mother's account of what happened to her at Auschwitz as transcribed by Eisenstein from the videotape interview made for Steven Spielberg's Shoah project.

This haunting, visually ravishing graphic memoir speaks universally about memory, loss and recovery of the past through storytelling.


Bernice Eisenstein will talk about her book and show accompanying images on Tuesday May 15th at 7:30 p.m. at Royal St. George's College in Toronto.

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