112 pgs. color | $24.99 hardcover | W: Ginette Kolinka, Jean-David Morvan, and Victor Matet; A: Richard Efa and Cesc F. Dalmases
The early years of Ginette Cherkasky, later Ginette Kolinka, were fairly ordinary. Born into a large, nonobservant Jewish family in Paris, she did the usual things children do: going to school, hanging out with friends, playing on a sports team. Things changed when she was 15, as Nazi Germany took control of France and life became a series of increasing restrictions and requirements placed on Jews, the most famous of which was probably the wearing of the yellow star. Still, her youth protected her from taking any of it too seriously, and she remained generally upbeat and optimistic about the future.
After a tip from a sympathetic post office worker that someone had dropped a dime on them, her family moved to the relative safety of Avignon, in southern France, but eventually the war caught up with them there as well. They were arrested and sent to the prison Les Baumettes, where they were separated. Ginette was later transported to Auschwitz, along with her father and younger brother, but their fates were quite different: Ginette, as a healthy young adult, was fortunate to be selected for work, but her father and little brother were immediately killed. Subjected to one abuse after another, and observing what was going on around her, in the camp Ginette learned for the first time to hate. She also learned to stop thinking, a choice she thinks may have saved her life.
After the war, Ginette married Albert Kolinka and gave birth to her son Richard (a drummer who performed with the band Téléphone), but never spoke of her experiences. Richard wondered why other mothers didn’t have numbers tattooed on their arm, as did his mom, but he never asked, finding his answer in a book about Auschwitz. Then one day, after her husband’s death and when her son had become an adult, Ginette joined an association of survivors and began to speak about her experiences, eventually becoming an educator and sharing her experiences with young people. She made it to the ripe old age of 99, receiving numerous honors along the way, including being named an officer of the Legion of Honour.
Adieu Birkenau tells Ginette Kolinka’s story as written by J.D. Morvan and Victor Matet, translated by Edward Gauvin, and with art by Richard Efa and Cesc F Dalmases and coloring by Roger. The script jumps around in time, with the main periods that of the adolescent Ginette in Paris, Avignon, and Auschwitz and of the elderly Ginette after she became a Holocaust educator, but the story transitions easily between each period. This volume also includes an afterword by Tal Bruttmann that fills in some of the factual details about Ginette’s experiences, and those of French Jews more generally, and is illustrated with news clips, photographs, and art created by other prisoners. This afterword is a nice addition to Ginette’s story, placing it in context and filling in some historical details for those of us whose last class in European history was a long time ago.
The art in Adieu Birkenau is done in realistic clear line style, with lots of well-chosen details that bring each frame to life. Color is used to create the mood for the different time periods, with brighter colors used in the postwar scenes, a more subdued palette for Ginette’s early life, and a darker, browner palette for the concentration camp scenes. The art is a great match to the story being told and the combination of a consistent artistic style with a varied palette creates a sense of Ginette passing through different phases of her life, yet always remaining herself. | Sarah Boslaugh
You can see a sample of the artwork for Adieu Birkenau here.
