Author: Grażyna Bąkiewicz
Illustrator: Artur Nowicki
Year: 2019
Publisher: Nasza Księgarnia
Place of publication: Warszawa
Pages: 222
ISBN: 9788310134646
Notes: “Ale historia…” series
The history teacher Mr. Cebula is known for his unconventional teaching method: time travel. It is the year 2030, and the teacher regularly sends his students into the past in order for them to experience events from history books first hand. In this volume of the series “Ale historia…,” the characters are transported into the late 1930s. In Germany, they watch the rising totalitarianism and anti-Semitism. Next, they witness the outbreak of the Second World War, the surrender of Warsaw, life under occupation and underground resistance. At one point, Mr. Cebula’s students find themselves in a concentration camp, but manage to escape. Having returned to their own time, the characters evaluate the Second World War and Polish people’s post-war attitudes towards Germans.
Although the novel is focused on the Polish nation’s war experiences, themes of Jewish history and the Holocaust also abound. They include anti-Semitism (both by the Germans and the Poles), the fates of Jewish orphans, vandalizing Jewish businesses as well as establishing ghettos and concentration camps. The book is richly illustrated with comic book panels and other paratexts which give brief overviews of historical events and phenomena, including Adolf Hitler’s statements (“Jews are unnecessary and they have to be removed” [31]).
Bibliography:
- Rybak, K., Zagłada i ideologia w polskiej literaturze dziecięcej XXI wieku, „Narracje o Zagładzie”, no. 1(7), 2021, pp. 155–173 (p. 168, fn. 61);
- Rybak, K., Obrazowanie Zagłady. Narracje holokaustowe w polskiej literaturze XXI wieku dla dzieci i młodzieży, Warszawa 2023.