We are on our own : a memoir / Miriam Katin.
Material type:
TextPublisher: Montreal : Drawn and Quarterly, 2023Description: 122 pages chiefly illustrations ; 21 x 22 cmContent type: - text
- still image
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781770466357
- 1770466355
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Northport Library | Graphic Novel | 940.5318 K19 | Available | 33111009474723 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
A crisis of faith follows a mother and daughter in this beautifully rendered, harrowing WWII memoir
With the heartrending We Are on Our Own, Miriam Katin recounts the story of her escape from German-occupied Hungary as a child, led by her determined mother. The two fled Budapest near the end of WWII and at the age of sixty-three Katin enshrined her memory in these extraordinary pages, originally published in hardcover more than fifteen years ago.
In 1944, Miriam is a toddler beloved by her dog Rexy, but when her mother is forced to give up their "Jewish dog" to the German authorities, Miriam's world begins to unravel. The two flee to the countryside after faking their deaths and traversing lands blanketed with snow. Miriam's fragmented childhood memories of forests, chocolate, strange men, and the noise of war are reconstituted in this beautifully told epic journey where the innocence of a child is set against unthinkable violence.
Another crisis, one of faith, haunts the severed family on their path. Struggling to reunite with Miriam's father who has been conscripted to the Hungarian army, mother and daughter contemplate God, wondering how He could allow such destruction. Poetic words of the Torah combine with images of war as Miriam examines the theological dilemma both victims as well as survivors of the Shoah. When Miriam and her mother hide with a winemaker, they soothe their nerves with the tonic, reciting "God is red. God is in the glass." God, they understand, is in the very human will to survive, and in that pursuit of survival, we are truly on our own.
"A stunning memoir of a mother and daughter's survival in WWII and their subsequent lifelong struggle with faith. In this captivating and elegantly illustrated graphic memoir, Miriam Katin retells the story of her and her mother's escape on foot from the Nazi invasion of Budapest. With her father off fighting for the Hungarian army and the German troops quickly approaching, Katin and her mother are forced to flee to the countryside after faking their deaths. Leaving behind all of their belongings and loved ones, and unable to tell anyone of their whereabouts, they disguise themselves as a peasant woman and her illegitimate child, while literally staying a few steps ahead of the German soldiers. We Are on Our Own is a woman's attempt to rebuild her earliest childhood trauma in order to come to an understanding of her lifelong questioning of faith. Katin's faith is shaken as she wonders how God could create and tolerate such a wretched world, a world of fear and hiding, bargaining and theft, betrayal and abuse. The complex and horrific experiences on the run are difficult for a child to understand, and as a child, Katin sees them with the simple longing, sadness, and curiosity she feels when her dog disappears or a stranger makes her mother cry" -- Provided by publisher.