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When I Grow Up: The Lost Autobiographies of Six Yiddish Teenagers
When I Grow Up: The Lost Autobiographies of Six Yiddish Teenagers | Ken Krimstein
4 posts | 4 read | 3 to read
An NPR Best Book of the YearA Washington Post Best Book of the YearA Chicago Tribune Fall Best ReadAn Alma most anticipated book of November From the prize-winning author of The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt, a stunning graphic narrative of newly discovered stories from Jewish teens on the cusp of WWII. When I Grow Up is New Yorker cartoonist Ken Krimstein's new graphic nonfiction book, based on six of hundreds of newly discovered, never-before-published autobiographies of Eastern European Jewish teens on the brink of WWII--found in 2017 hidden in a Lithuanian church cellar. These autobiographies, long thought destroyed by the Nazis, were written as entries for three competitions held in Eastern Europe in the 1930s, just before the horror of the Holocaust forever altered the lives of the young people who wrote them. In When I Grow Up, Krimstein shows us the stories of these six young men and women in riveting, almost cinematic narratives, full of humor, yearning, ambition, and all the angst of the teenage years. It's as if half a dozen new Anne Frank stories have suddenly come to light, framed by the dramatic story of the documents' rediscovery. Beautifully illustrated, heart-wrenching, and bursting with life, When I Grow Up reveals how the tragedy that is about to befall these young people could easily happen again, to any of us, if we don't learn to listen to the voices from the past.
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Anna40
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Six stories based on notebooks filled with accounts by young Jews in Lithuania translated from Yiddish. They were entries for a prize that was never awarded because Hitler invaded Poland. I liked the art work and the stories. The fact that they were found - they had been hidden for years in a church - is amazing.

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Graywacke
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Based on a special find. 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. The works were hidden from the Nazis and then the Soviets. Krimstein has illustrated 6, teenage voices from the lost Yiddish world. ✡️

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Graywacke
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It‘s amazing these stories exist. A late-1930‘s biography competition for Yiddish teenagers across Europe accumulated several hundred entries in Vilna (now Lithuania). Of course there are no more Yiddish teenagers in Europe. These were first hidden from Nazi occupation and then hidden from Soviet Russia and only recently discovered. Krimstein illustrates six of them. I‘ve just begun to scan through.

GingerAntics Wow, what a treasure. I‘m going to have to go find this now. It sounds wonderful and heartbreaking. 2y
Graywacke @GingerAntics its history is heartbreaking. By the way, I love your picture (which looks like doves on a Ukrainian flag to me) 2y
GingerAntics @Graywacke that‘s what it‘s supposed to be. It‘s really sad and terrifying that somehow this is all very current as well, since Putin is calling the Jewish president of Ukraine a nazi. 🤔🤯🤬 2y
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violabrain
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This is an amazing graphic novel that brings life to six autobiographies written by Yiddish teenagers shortly before World War II broke out. The backstory behind these autobiographies (explained in the preface) is incredible, and I loved hearing these teenagers‘ voices all these decades later.