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Ken Krimstein

Author of The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt

5 Works 217 Members 12 Reviews

About the Author

Image credit: Uncredited image found at DePaul University website

Works by Ken Krimstein

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Common Knowledge

Birthdate
1958-05-24
Gender
male

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Reviews

Note: I received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.
 
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fernandie | 4 other reviews | Sep 14, 2022 |
This remarkable graphic novel tells the almost lost stories of six Jewish teenagers from Vilnius, Poland, in 1939, who were competing in a writing contest. Their manuscripts were part of an ethnographic study, with a prize of 150 zlotys ($1000 in current US dollars) for the best discourse on the writer's chosen topic, which included family and religious life, the war, friends, family, political organizations, and occupations. As war broke out and Jews were removed from Polish life, the manuscripts were hidden away, along with many others from the YIVO (a school without walls) collection, and these six stories were found in pristine condition in the organ pipes of a derelict cathedral, having been rescued not only from the Nazis, but also from Stalin's troops. The author, a graphic artist, has brilliantly illustrated each story, by two girls and four boys who seem older than their years. They have the same difficulties known universally to all teenagers: recalcitrant parents, unfaithful boyfriends and girlfriends, disillusionment with teachers and schools, mean girls, political rivalries, and unfulfilled yearnings - all made more poignant by the reader's knowledge that all the writers are doomed (there is one gratifying survival). The illustrations, in orange and charcoal black, bring vivid, striking drama to the sometimes mundane writings. This collection would make an excellent anthologized series for stage or television. Note: the footnotes are way too tiny to be legible.… (more)
½
 
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froxgirl | 4 other reviews | Jun 6, 2022 |
17. When I Grow Up: The Lost Autobiographies of Six Yiddish Teenagers by Ken Krimstein
published: 2021
format: 232-page graphic hardcover
acquired: March read: Apr 9-24 time reading: 2:27, 0.6 mpp
genre/style: graphic nonfiction theme random (LT inspired)
locations: 1930’s Yiddish Europe
about the author: A Jewish American cartoonist for the New Yorker, who teaches as DePaul and the Art Institute of Chicago.

It‘s amazing these stories exist. During a cleaning of St George‘s Church, a decommissioned church in Vilna, Lithuania, in 2017, a trove of hidden papers were found in the organ pipes. These were Yiddish biographies of teenagers from the late 1930‘s. They had entered a competition that was never awarded because of WWII. Of course there are no more Yiddish teenagers in Europe. The works were hidden from the Nazis and then the Soviets. Krimstein has illustrated 6.

Krimstein calls these stories voices of a lost world. They are not deep elaborate stories, and they of course were not composed under the duress of Holocaust or any awareness of what was over the horizons. So they feel lighter than we might want with our hindsight. They are optimistic, and also on the problems of their lives and era. They touch on tensions with the religious traditions, on Jewish youth groups associated with communist and socialist ideals, your membership largely reflecting your family's economics, and, of course, on teenage crushes. The stories were anonymous, based on the rules of the competition. But not everyone followed this rule. One girl who provided her name and photograph was recognized by her American children. She had emigrated to the US. I felt the graphic aspect was mixed. Some pages felt very unfinished to me, but others are memorable.

After writing this I saw the review by villemezbrown below - who highlights that Krimstein seems to have changed the spirit of these letters. It worth noting.

You can get a feeling for Krimsteins work here: https://www.heyalma.com/the-skater/
And here is one of the original letters translated to English: https://museum.yivo.org/translations/BebaEpsteinEnglish.pdf
… (more)
 
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dchaikin | 4 other reviews | May 3, 2022 |
This book claims to be nonfiction, presenting the autobiographies of six Jewish youths written in the 1930s when they were mostly 19- or 20-years old, but as I read I started to have a queasy distrust of the presentation, feeling that Ken Krimstein's adaptation was intruding upon or standing between me and the original documents. I was able to find a translation of Beba Epstein's actual autobiography online at target="_top">https://museum.yivo.org/translations/BebaEpsteinEnglish.pdf and as I read through it I could see the massive liberties Krimstein had taken in his dramatization of it. I assume he did the same to the rest of the "autobiographies," and I just wish he and the publisher had been more upfront about that aspect.

I also dislike Krimstein's scratchy and blotchy art.… (more)
1 vote
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villemezbrown | 4 other reviews | Apr 2, 2022 |

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Works
5
Members
217
Popularity
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Rating
3.9
Reviews
12
ISBNs
12
Languages
3

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