Miriam Katin

We are on Our Own tells the story of a Jewish mother and child during World War II who, forced to flee their home in Budapest, struggle to survive and eventually reunite with their family. The plot and dialogue are elliptical, just giving you the edges of the big picture of the events surrounding our main characters. What the text elides, the chaotic and rich pencil illustrations eagerly fill in, telling a story that is as much an emotional portrait as it is historical one. Katin's specific emphasis on faith (and the questioning thereof) provides a meaningful thematic throughline.… (more)

This lovely book, with its colored-pencil-and-graphite artwork, tells the memories of the young Katin as she lived through the 1944 German invasion of Budapest. 5-year-old Miriam’s father is at the front when the order comes for all Hungarian Jews to be rounded up, so her upper-class mother takes drastic and life-altering steps: She purchases false papers, saying that she is a country cleaning woman, and that Miriam is her illegitimate child. She then fakes her own death and vanishes into the countryside, Miriam in tow.
The next year is a grim and dangerous odyssey – always one step ahead of the Nazis, Miriam’s mother tries to make a life for the two of them on the run, making awful bargains along the way (she is forced to become an SS officer’s lover for a time, in exchange for his silence). Mother and daughter seek help from strangers, work on farms in exchange for meager lodgings, and barter their last few belongings to stay alive. And along the way, Miriam suspects that her strong childhood faith in God has been misplaced.
At last, the war ends, Miriam’s father reunites with the pair, and the family eventually ends up in New York. But although her parents make their peace with the world, Miriam is left with a lifelong bitterness and a lack of faith. One hopes that the creation of this book is perhaps her way of laying her demons once and for all.
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This memoir could have been more than it was. Overall, the WWII part of the story was fairly well crafted, and the late 60s-early 70s part had potential, but since the more modern scenes were fairly sparse and not very eloquent, it almost detracted from the story rather than enhance it. The story seemed like it had a destination, most prominently in reflecting upon religion in a time of crisis, but instead of rounding out its focus, it rather hastily wrapped up the themes and called it a day. I would have been willing to follow the grown Lisa as she coped with the traumas of her childhood amid her fortunate adulthood--I am rather bewildered that Katin didn't take it further in that direction. Ah well.… (more)