Gusta Lemelman (1922–1996)
Author of Mendel's Daughter: A Memoir
Works by Gusta Lemelman
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1922
- Date of death
- 1996-12
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- Poland (birth)
- Places of residence
- Brooklyn, New York, USA
- Relationships
- Lemelman, Martin (son, co-author)
- Short biography
- Gusta Lemelman was born to a Jewish family in a small village in Poland. Her youth was cut short when her country was invaded by Nazi Germany in World War II. She and her husband survived the Holocaust, and emigrated to the USA, settling in in Brooklyn, where they owned a candy store. In 1989, her son Martin Lemelman videotaped Gusta as she talked about her childhood in the 1930s and her eventual escape from Nazi persecution. In the book Mendel’s Daughter, Lemelman transcribed his mother’s harrowing testimony, and brought her narrative to life with his own black-and-white drawings, interspersed with reproductions of actual photos, documents and other relics from the war.
Members
Reviews
Mendel's Daughter: A Memoir by Martin Lemelman
I loved how the artist wrote down the words his mother must have actually said in her recorded Holocaust survival narrative; her dialect was exactly like my Polish grandfather's and therefore she sounded like family and very real to me. What an experience reading this book; the illustrations enhanced the experience even more; I highly recommend this to anyone 13 to adult.
Both the story and the presentation are breathtaking! I love the mixed media with both the real pictures and the author's illustrations. I read the whole book in one sitting. What a fabulous keepsake for the author's family, and what a wonderful gift that he would share it with us.
Martin Lemelman videotaped his mother's rememberances of life before and during the Holocaust, then didn't look at it for years. After his mother's death, he used the videotapes to as the basis for this memoir, told in his mother's voice and illustrated in a graphic style reminiscent of Art Spiegelman's Maus, but without the frames. Occasionally his uncle's voice takes over the story, and I felt as though I were sitting around the kitchen table listening to my elders talk. It is a very accessible and appropriate for young adult readers as well as adults.… (more)
Statistics
- Works
- 2
- Members
- 98
- Popularity
- #193,038
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 3
- ISBNs
- 4
- Languages
- 1