From: Norma Jean <nsawicki>
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 09:37:07 -0400

I was up until 5 AM this morning reading a splendid novel, Emil and Karl by Yankev Glatshteyn, Translated by Jeffrey Shandler, which has just been published by Neal Porter/Roaring Brook Press. Cried a lot too...it is moving, and poignant; a novel that can easily be read by kids... north, south, east, and west, cities, small towns, villages, etc...in other words...it is not for "the special reader," meaning, only smart kids/good readers. Hope you will treat yourself and read it. Given the current discussion, you may find it especially interesting; a reviewer for the New York Times said it best....
(Norma Jean)

April 9, 2006/NY Times

Children's Books

Emil and Karl by Yankev Glatshteyn Translated by Jeffrey Shandler

Reviewed by Alana Newhouse

Dragons, wolves and wicked stepmothers, not to mention Count Olafs and Voldemorts ? the world of children's literature is alive with villains. But what happens when the bad guys are real? How do you tell a tale in which, for a group of people, there actually were monsters in the closet?

Indeed, the story of the Holocaust has overwhelmed countless novels intended for adults. The challenge in a book for children is far greater ? the risk of frightening them competes with the possibility that an overload of horror will leave them numb. It is perhaps surprising, then, that a writer working with no hindsight at all hit the mark so precisely. In 1934, Yankev Glatshteyn, one of the foremost Yiddish writers of the 20th century, visited his Polish hometown for the first time since immigrating to America in 1914, when he was 18. Worried by the anti-Semitism he witnessed, Glatshteyn wrote two adult novels about his experiences, as well as "Emil and Karl," the story of two young boys ? one Jewish, one not ? living in Vienna right after the Anschluss with Nazi Germany.

Written in Yiddish and intended for students at Yiddish afternoon and weekend schools, the book was published in New York in 1940. "It is among the very first books written about the Holocaust for readers of any age and in any language," Jeffrey Shandler, who teaches at Rutgers University, notes in an afterword. After more than a half-century, "Emil and Karl" is now available in English for the first time, in Shandler's clear and graceful translation.

The story begins with Karl, sitting in his apartment next to an overturned chair and a broken vase, remnants of the struggle between his mother and the three "big, hulking men" who had come to arrest her. Karl, whose father died years before"while fighting for the workingman," has just lost his only surviving family member. "Suddenly it seemed to Karl that the stillness in the kitchen and the bedroom was more frightening than anything else. Even if he were to stay where he was for the rest of the day, and the next day, and the day after that, everything in the house would still be quiet ? because his mother, his beautiful mother, would no longer be there." Bewildered, Karl seeks out Emil, his best friend from school. But Emil, who is Jewish, is in even worse shape: his father, too, has been taken away, leading his mother into what adult readers will recognize as a nervous breakdown. The two boys are on their own.

And so Karl and Emil begin a tense hopscotch through Vienna, with each propping up the other through moments of uncertainty." 'Just pretend that this is an island, and we're here all alone,' Karl said. . . . 'And when it gets light, we'll climb up the trees and eat nuts.' " They are occasionally in danger ? in one harrowing scene soldiers force them to scrub the streets, rubbing their hands raw ? but they also have the good fortune to pass, almost seamlessly, from one righteous person to the next. All of these saviors, many of them not Jewish, offer the pair refuge and even love at great risk to their own lives ? perhaps none more memorably than Hans, the anti-Nazi activist who disguises himself in public as a town idiot, puffing up his cheeks and shouting at inappropriate times: "Heil!" Throughout it all, though, the fiercest bond remains the one between Karl and Emil, each of whom finds deep resources of strength and loyalty to the other.

Glatshteyn did not shy away from terrifying details ? in fact, many scenes are based on actual events reported in newspapers ? but he kept his audience in mind. The scariest moment is instigated not by the barrel of a gun, but by the looming possibility that the friends will be forced to split up before they can reach safety in England. For a 9-year-old, the prospect of being separated from a best friend may be more fearsome than the more abstract threat represented by Nazi soldiers.

Like "The Diary of Anne Frank," "Emil and Karl" will stir adults as well as the book's intended audience. Unlike the diary, however, this novel leaves the fate of the heroes unknown, perhaps because, writing in 1940, Glatshteyn could not imagine the end. Or maybe it was more deliberate: a touch of hope to move his readers beyond fear.

Alana Newhouse is the arts and culture editor at The Forward.






  
Received on Sun 23 Apr 2006 08:37:07 AM CDT