Mendel's Daughter: A Memoir [Paperback]

Martin Lemelman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2, 2007

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In what is clearly a labor of love, artist Lemelman has created a "memoir" told in the voice of his mother, Gusta, a survivor of the Holocaust. With the characteristic phrasing of one who comes to English later in life, Gusta's is a gritty eyewitness report on the great upheaval of eastern Europe in the 1930s and '40s, based on Lemelman's recording of his mother in 1989; at the harshest moments, the reader can take a small bit of comfort that Gusta survived to live a long life in the U.S.A. Her tale begins with her childhood in the town of Germakivka, Poland (in the current-day Ukraine), and kicks into high gear when the Nazis bring war into her village, destroying an entire way of living. Her voice rolls on inexorably, 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. Lemelman's subdued art gives the story its heart; 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. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

In 1989, children's book illustrator Lemelman videotaped his mother, Gusta, recounting her experiences growing up in 1930s Poland and narrowly surviving the Holocaust. When he was 52, Gusta, by then deceased, whispered to Lemelman in a dream, inspiring this unique transcription of her testimony, which proceeds from her idyllic early childhood in Germakivka, Poland, to early encounters with Nazi storm troopers, one of whom butted her in the head with a rifle, and, later, hand-to-mouth survival in the woods with her brothers until Poland's liberation. Gusta drew on secondhand accounts of surviving relatives for the harrowing news of her parents' and sisters' deaths in the concentration camps. On virtually every page Lemelman skillfully juxtaposes haunting pencil drawings, family photographs, and handwritten text, sans comicslike borders. He keeps intact Gusta's Jewish American dialect. His unique contribution to Holocaust literature will doubtless educe comparisons with Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus (1986), yet many may find Lemelman's more realist work more approachable, immediate, and, ultimately, unforgettable. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (October 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416552219
• ISBN-13: 978-1416552215
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 7.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #963,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Richie's Picks: MENDEL'S DAUGHTER, February 4, 2007

By 

Richie Partington "Richie's Picks" (Sebastopol, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mendel's Daughter: A Memoir (Hardcover)

MENDEL'S DAUGHTER details the harrowing story of Martin Lemelman's mother and her family during the Holocaust. It is a story that Lemelman grew up knowing very little of. But in 1989, after his mother, Gusta, dropped a frozen chicken on her foot (causing it to be broken), Lemelman brought her to stay at his house in Pennsylvania. In part to curtail her efforts to do all of the cooking and cleaning at his house with her broken foot, and in part to have a family history that he would be able to pass along to his own children, Lemelman persuaded his mother to finally share her story. He wisely videotaped her. After her death a decade ago, he watched the recording, edited the story Gusta related by reorganizing it chronologically and augmenting her accounts with those of his Uncle Isia, who also survived. He then illustrated it with hundreds of drawings interspersed with actual documents and some little black and white photos his mother had saved from her childhood.

Gusta Mendel grew up in a prosperous and well-regarded Jewish family in a portion of Poland that is now part of the Ukraine. This was a region that during World War II was invaded first by the Communists and then by the Nazis. We know from the outset of this memoir that this is a story of survival, that Gusta made it through the Holocaust. Following the historical and personal events that are depicted in this book, Gusta would eventually come to America and, with her husband, raise Lemelman and his brother in the back of their Brooklyn candy store.

The rest of the Mendel family was murdered by the Nazis, but Gusta, Isia, Yetala, and another sibling, Simon, lived. The four siblings survived in the woods through two winters, digging themselves a series of underground shelters, burying the potatoes and sugarbeets they'd steal from fields in the middle of the night, and getting some help from a few people who were sympathetic to their plight.

"For us, the war ended in March-April 1944.

"Who could believe that the German army coming back to Germakivka would be the beginning of our liberation? This time, thanks God, they was coming from the East, running away from Russia."

The result of Lemelman's labor of love is the real deal: an illustrated memoir which, while technically published as an adult book, will be incredibly approachable, engaging, and memorable to middle school and high school age readers.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful and essential book, November 30, 2006

By 

Brettne (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mendel's Daughter: A Memoir (Hardcover)

This gorgeously illustrated memoir has to be one of the most original contributions to Holocaust literature ever conceived. Written with grace and stunning emotional restraint, it personalizes a tragedy whose enormity is impossible to grasp, and also serves as a moving testatement of a son's love for his mother. An essential book for all, regardless of one's faith.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Heartbreaking and Heartwarming Story of Survival, December 18, 2006

By 

Vicki Glaser - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mendel's Daughter: A Memoir (Hardcover)

I picked up Martin Lemelman's book, "Mendel's Daughter," and did not put it down until I had read through to the last page. The story is familiar, yet new--a testimony to the spirit, faith, and tenacity of those who did whatever they could, whatever they had to do to survive the atrocities of the Holocaust. Yet it is much more than a tale of survival or an account of the fate of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis. It is a touching, poignant story of a family that although divided by circumstances, remains whole and committed to surviving, supporting each other, reuniting, and, throughout, holding tight to their beliefs and traditions. The beautiful artwork that pictorially weaves this tale brings the characters to life, and the reader cannot help but feel their pain and anguish, their struggle to survive, their love and their joy. The drawings, the photographs, and the text of "Mendel's Daughter" all combine to create a timeless memorial to a family, a people, and a period in our history that must never be forgotten or dismissed.