{"id":30873,"date":"2024-11-06T14:14:58","date_gmt":"2024-11-06T14:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=30873"},"modified":"2024-11-06T14:14:58","modified_gmt":"2024-11-06T14:14:58","slug":"ginette-kolinka-adieu-birkenau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2024\/11\/06\/ginette-kolinka-adieu-birkenau\/","title":{"rendered":"Ginette Kolinka Adieu Birkenau"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Ginette Kolinka<\/strong>, JDMorvan & Victor Matet<\/strong>, Cesc & Efa<\/strong>, Roger<\/strong>, Tal Bruttmann<\/strong> & various; translated by Edward Gauvin<\/strong> (SelfMadeHero)
\nISBN: 978-1-91422-423-2 (HB\/Digital edition)<\/p>\n

Win\u2019s Christmas Gift Recommendation: An Awful Truth That Must Be Told… 8\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

This book includes Discriminatory Content<\/strong> included for dramatic effect. <\/em><\/p>\n

With its world-shaking reordering of society and all the consequent, still-felt repercussions of the rise of fascism and (hopefully) temporary triumph of totalitarianism, World War II – and the apparently ongoing\/slowly gaining momentum third one – remain very much in people\u2019s minds. I fear current events may well be inviting the world to revisit and reemphasise those hard learned lessons in the months and years to come…<\/p>\n

The role of history in avoiding repeating past mistakes has never been more crucial and -thanks to brave and talented individuals and a trend for biographical and autobiographical sequential narratives – better armed than now. One chilling yet charming case in point is this testament, detailing the life and work of a Frenchwoman who survived Nazi concentration camps and enjoyed a \u201cnormal\u201d life before latterly dedicating her last years to educating the world and preventing the reoccurrence we\u2019re all anticipating today…<\/p>\n

Born in February 1925, Parisian Ginette Kolinka (nee Cherkasky) enjoyed an unexceptional early life within a large, loving, non-religious Jewish family. That changed in 1940 when the Nazis took over. Fleeing across the divided nation (half under direct German administration and half under the puppet \u201cVichy\u201d regime), Ginette and her kin were inevitably captured, processed through a methodically inhuman system and sent to Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Birkenau. Ginette somehow survived as so very many did not and was liberated in May 1945.<\/p>\n

She returned to France, married and remained silent about what she endured for fifty years, but was convinced by other Shoah survivors to share her experiences – particularly with school children. Kolinka became a tireless and passionate \u201cambassador for the memory\u201d of those dark days and actions. Her efforts have been acknowledged with fame and numerous accolades, including a knighthood from (and eventual officer status in) the Legion of Honour, and appointment as commander of the Ordre des Palmes acad\u00e9miques<\/em> for services to education.<\/p>\n

Kolinka is a major force in spreading awareness of atrocity and in 2022 her life and achievements became this engaging and compelling graphic tome thanks to writers JDMorvan & Victor Matet, illustrators Cesc & Efa and colourist Roger. Rather than further pr\u00e9cising Kolinka\u2019s amazing story, I\u2019ll just say that the tone seamlessly switches from sweetly engaging to appallingly chilling (and back again) with deft ease and the narrative conceit of contrasting flashbacks of Ginette\u2019s historical recollections with a present day trip back to camp with a group of modern-day schoolchildren is shockingly effective and powerfully evocative.
\n\"\"
\nAdding academic vigour and heartbreaking veracity, the tale is appended by Tal Bruttmann\u2019s pictorial essay \u2018Ginette Kolinka: A Survivor\u2019s Story\u2019<\/em>, detailing everything from Paris under Nazi occupation to life in the camps, supplemented by photos, sketches, recovered artefacts and family memorabilia.<\/p>\n

This tale is a potent counterpoint to the usual shock-&-bombast approach, devoting as much time to showing how far we\u2019ve come and what we all stand to lose if those days and attitudes are allowed to resurface. Adieu Birkenau <\/strong>reveals how inhumanity, stupidity and simple evil can only be defeated by endurance and will. Here, we see acknowledgment of the nigh-universally disregarded contributions of women caught up in the conflict, and how the way to win against monsters is to not to be like them and never let them win.
\n\u00a9 \u00c9ditions Albin Michel D\u00e9partment bande dessin\u00e9e, 2023. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ginette Kolinka, JDMorvan & Victor Matet, Cesc & Efa, Roger, Tal Bruttmann & various; translated by Edward Gauvin (SelfMadeHero) ISBN: 978-1-91422-423-2 (HB\/Digital edition) Win\u2019s Christmas Gift Recommendation: An Awful Truth That Must Be Told… 8\/10 This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect. With its world-shaking reordering of society and all the consequent, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Ginette Kolinka Adieu Birkenau”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[115,119,214,122,170,296,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography","category-comicsacademic","category-european","category-historical","category-non-fiction","category-school-stories","category-war-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-81X","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30873"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30878,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30873\/revisions\/30878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}