Author: Ula Orlińska-Frymus
Illustrator: Monika Kreft
Year: 2018
Publisher: Chatulim
Place of publication: Szczecin
Pages: 48
ISBN: 9788395052903
Notes: Bilingual edition in Polish and English (translator: Małgosia Underwood).
Told from the perspective of a little girl, the story concentrates on the eponymous grandfather, a rabbi from the town of Czortków (in today’s Ukraine) and his relationship with his granddaughter. During their conversations and games, the man tells the child about his pre-war childhood, his experience of the Holocaust, imprisonment in a camp and a post-war trauma which also affects the narrator. The brevity of the text is balanced with illustrations which refer to Auschwitz-Birkenau or death marches.
The book does not so much describe the Holocaust itself as it shows different ways of remembering things and the mechanisms of post-memory which impact successive generations of Holocaust victims. Much space is also devoted to explaining aspects of Jewish culture, religion and tradition. A glossary of terms at the back of the book teaches the reader such words as shtetl or matzo. The book is bilingual: the main body of the text as well as the foreword, afterword, glossary and the authors’ bios have been translated into English.
Bibliografia:
- Rybak, K., Zagłada i ideologia w polskiej literaturze dziecięcej XXI wieku, „Narracje o Zagładzie”, no. 1(7), 2021, pp. 155–173 (p. 161);
- Rybak, K., Obrazowanie Zagłady. Narracje holokaustowe w polskiej literaturze XXI wieku dla dzieci i młodzieży, Warszawa 2023.