Esther remembers her own experience of the Holocaust as a Jewish girl living in Amsterdam, and recounts to her grandson Daniel and his friend Jeroen how she escaped from the Nazis and survived by going into hiding in the countryside. Her parents were not so lucky. Esther knows they were sent to a concentration camp and died there, and with Daniel’s help she embarks on a search to discover what happened to them during the last months of their lives. After tracking down an old friend who now lives in Israel, Esther finally learns the shocking story of how her parents met their fates at Auschwitz.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
ERIC HEUVEL is a highly regarded Dutch graphic novel artist. He lives in Zaandam. RUUD VAN DER ROL worked at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam for many years, and LIES SCHIPPERS is an editor and author there. They have both written and edited books and educational materials dealing with Anne Frank and her family, her work and her lifetime, as well as the Holocaust, human rights, prejudice, and discrimination. Mr. van der Rol lives in Castricum, and Ms. Schippers lives in Haarlem.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Searching for the appropriate medium to depict the Holocaust,
By
This review is from: The Search (Hardcover)
An unusual work in the corpus of graphic Shoa novellas is Die Suche (The Search). Published by the Anna Frank House and the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam, this educational brochure imparts information on the Shoa to high school students. The text authors of Die Suche are Ruud van der Rol, Lies Schippers and Eric Heuvel, a well-known comics artist and illustrator in Holland, who also provided the pictures. Surprisingly, these pictures are reminiscent of the Tintin series by Georges Prosper Rémi (Hergé) (1907-1983), probably to make the Shoa story more accessible to young readers through pictures, which have become an inalienable asset of comics culture.
For pedagogical reasons, the voice narrating the Shoa events is personal. Here is the story of a family, one of whose daughters was able to hide and after the war looked for her family. Following the history of the Hechts, most of whom perished during the Shoa, is in fact the authors' search for the guilty parties. In this sense the speaking voice belongs to the contrite--the German and the Dutch peoples. The rather stereotypical plot resembles many stories of Jewish families who experienced the horror of the Shoa. The stations the Hechts went through until their arrival in Auschwitz resemble those of many Jews; in this respect the booklet reveals nothing new. The Hechts, who lived in Germany, sought refuge in Amsterdam after the Nazis rose to power. When the Germans occupied Holland, the Jews were transferred to a camp and from there to Auschwitz. Esther Hecht, who was not home when the Jews of her neighborhood were rounded up, thus escaped by chance and found a hide-out in a village. After the war she placed an ad in search of her family. A Jewish neighbor, who was with her parents at Auschwitz told her about their death. She moved to the USA and years later, when she told her grandchildren about the Shoa, one of them located that neighbor in Israel through the Internet. Only then did she find out about her family's ordeals. Again, this is a stereotypical story: Germany, Holland, Auschwitz and Israel are intertwined in one bundle meant to evoke in German and Dutch students a net of associations that unravel the events and the involvement of their country in the destruction of German and Dutch Jewry. Before he wrote Die Suche Heuvel published another booklet, A Family Secret, which also tells about Dutch Jewry during the Shoa. Interestingly, in neither of these two booklets do the survivors themselves tell the Shoa story; it is the second and third generation's voice the reader hears. In one booklet the family's story comes to light when one of Esther's grandchildren finds, through the Internet, his grandmother's neighbor, who had witnessed Esther's her parents' deportation. Similarly, in the second booklet, Jeroen, another grandson, goes up to his grandmother's attic to look for old objects to sell on Queen's Day in Holland. He finds his grandmother's diary where she writes of her and her family's tribulations during World War II. In both stories, the grandchildren--the third generation, like the students for which they were written--assumed the task of revealing the events, and it is they who are meant to learn from them. The art historian and journalist Rolf Lautenschläger has stated that Die Suche has become a popular text and to a certain extent has even raised the level of information among Germany's young generation, most of whom are not familiar with this sinister chapter in their country's history. The comics genre thus expanded both the knowledge and the interest in the Shoa among 9-13-year-olds. But Die Suche raised yet another question: is it appropriate to (re)present the Shoa in art in general and in comics in particular? The preoccupation with the legitimacy of art to depict the Shoa and the public debate kindled by the emergence of an uncommon artistic medium--comics--that tries to cope with the trauma reflect the unrelenting questions of how and to what extent the Shoa can be documented. Die Suche raises these questions, which, among students are a way of preserving awareness of the Shoa. Ben Baruch Blich, ph.d. History and Theory Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good way for kids to learn about the Holocaust,
By
This review is from: The Search (Hardcover)
This graphic picture book tells the story of a young Jewish girl separated from her parents during the Holocaust. She is elderly now and is finally able to tell her story to her children and grandchildren and with their help is able to locate someone who knew what happened to her parents. The language is appropriate for older middle grade and even middle and high school age kids. My 3rd and 5th grade girls thought this book was great and have read it several times--and the book has lead to some really good discussions as well.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Introduction to Graphic Novels,
By Judy A. Brandon (Seattle, WA, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Search (Paperback)
Our girls book group, ages 9-12, read this book and everyone, girls, mothers and grandmothers, enjoyed the story and the format. Most of us had not read a graphic novel before and it was a great introduction. The story is told looking back into the past and is touching and informative. Easy to relate to.
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