Degas, Painter of Ballerinas by Susan Goldman Rubin

"Drawing is not what one sees, but what one can make others see." 

Degas, Painter of Ballerinas is an exquisite biography for young readers of this famous artist, known for his sketches, paintings and sculptures of dancers.From 1852 to 1912, Degas produced over a thousand dance pictures. While many artists were part of the Impressionist movement, Degas' interest was much different. Impressionists painted landscapes outdoors. Degas spent hours indoors at the Paris Opera observing dancers.The dancers were known as petits rats or "little rats" because they were always hungry. The petits rats would practice different ballet moves over and over to perfection. Degas would sketch their poses as they stretched, rested on a bench or worked at the barre.

Because he spent so much time at the Paris Opera, Degas was very familiar with the different ballet moves and would sometimes do a pirouette or an arabesque. He formed a fatherly friendship with many of the dancers whom he treated as if they were his own children. He saw how hard they worked and  how difficult the art of ballet was.

Degas did his sketching in the ballet studio or his own studio where the dancers were invited to pose. Afterwards he would combine these sketches into his paintings which were done when he was alone.

As time passed, Degas' art changed and developed. He explored different techniques,  and as his eyesight deteriorated, Degas moved to creating sculpture. The result was art that is timeless, beautiful and now considered very valuable.

Discussion

Degas, Painter of Ballerinas is an fascinating exploration into the process and technique of this famous artist.  Rubin keeps younger readers engaged with her simple explanations and with the many wonderful colour plates of Degas' paintings, drawings and sculptures, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Rubin informs her readers on some of the different techniques Degas applied to his work. For example, he often used a single color to create an accent, making a canvas "come to life" or mixed pastels with charcoal and tempera paint. He even used bleach and steam to create different effects in his paintings.The layout of the book is such that there is a bit of text on each page accompanied by many wonderful pictures of Degas' artwork. Rubin mentions Degas poor eyesight, something that plagued him even as a young man and how he tried to preserve his eyesight by wearing blue tinted glasses. As his eyesight worsened, Degas turned to sculpture, creating incredible wax sculptures of dancers in certain poses.

While the first part of the book focuses more on Degas art. Rubin also includes a fairly detailed biography of the artist in a separate section at the back of the book. This gorgeous edition with the beautiful cover and the pink satin spine would make a lovely gift for either a young aspiring dancer or someone interested in art and artists.


Book Details:

Degas, Painter of Ballerinas by Susan Goldman Rubin
New York: Abrams Books For Young Readers    2019
60 pp.

Fireflies in the Dark by Susan Goldman Rubin

Fireflies in the Dark tells the story of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, an artist and a teacher who worked with children using art. When Hitler came to power and set up a dictatorship, he began to implement many policies to rid Germany of its Jewish population. In 1939, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia. Friedl lived in Prague at this time. Concerned for her well being, given the Nazi policies towards Jews, friends had arranged for Friedl to emigrate to Palestine, the new Jewish state, but she refused to leave her friends. Eventually, Friedl, like most of the Jews in Czechoslovakia, was sent to a concentration camp in 1942. Friedl, her husband Pavel Brandeis were sent to a camp called Terezin or better known as Theresiendstadt.


When Friedl was packing to leave for Terezin she took many art supplies including paint, brushes and paper. Her motivation for doing so were the children that she knew would be in the camp. Friedl felt that art would be able to help many of the children in the camp. Friedl and her husband, along with all the Jewish population of her town and many others had to lug their suitcases almost two miles into Terezin which was once a Czech army fortress. All of the town's non-Jewish inhabitants were ordered to leave and it was turned into a camp.

At the camp the Nazi guards took away anything of value that the Jewish people had brought with them but Friedl's art supplies were left untouched. Families were separated so Friedl lived in a separate barrack from Pavel. She was sent to live with the children in a "home" called L410 which was for girls. Conditions in L410 were terrible as it was cramped and cold. Friedl managed to create a small area away from the packed barrack that allowed children some space.

In the camp, Friedl and other adults taught the children in secret as they were not allowed to attend school but only to study music and crafts. Friedl's effort in this endeavour was to give art lessons to any child who wished to learn. It was through art that Friedl helped the children to express what they were feeling, to escape the horrific situation they had been placed into and to retain some dignity during a time when hope was lost. People including the children did not receive enough food, had to cope with bedbugs and lice, and were often sick. In addition was the ever present fear of being named to the transports which meant being sent east to a death camp.

In 1943 Friedl and the other tutors at Terezin had the children put on a production of a Czech fairy tale called Fireflies. With Friedl's help they created the costumes for the musical. On October 6, 1944, Friedl along with thirty of her students, was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau were she was murdered.

At the end of the war when Terezin was liberated by the Russians, two suitcases containing five thousand children's drawings were found in the attic of L410. The suitcases were brought to Prague by Willi Groag who had been the head tutor at L410. Nothing was done about them until ten years after their discovery when they were finally exhibited. Today these drawings are now catalogued and preserved. Both the Jewish Museum in Prague and Beit Theresienstadt in Israel retain the drawings.

Discussion

Fireflies in the Dark is about the heroic efforts of Austrian-Jewish artist and educator Friedl Dicker to help Jewish children imprisoned in the concentration camp, Theresiendstadt.

Friedl Dicker was born in Vienna in 1898 to Simon and Karolina Dicker. Her father worked as an assistant in a stationary shop. Friedl's mother died when she was only four-years-old.  She attended drawing classes at the School of Art and Crafts where she took classes given by Professor Franz Cizek. In 1916, Friedl studied in Johannes Itten's private school. There she met Franz Singer and Anny Wettitz both of whom would be come good friends. Friedl also became interested in music during this time and studied harmony at Arnold Schoenberg's studio. 

Friedl studied at the Weimar Bauhaus school from 1919 to 1923. She moved there after Itten closed his school and moved to take up a teaching position at the Bauhaus. She was able to attend lectures by Paul Klee in 1921. These lectures opened Friedl to new ideas about children and art. This would lead to Friedl art courses in 1931 to kindergarten teachers, teaching them to use a child's unique personality and artistic abilities when creating art. 

Friedl fled to Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1934 after she was briefly imprisoned for being involved in Communist activities. There she met and married Pavel Brandeis, her cousin who worked as an accountant.  In Prague, Friedl worked teaching the children of political emigre's from Germany applying the concepts she had learned from Johannes Itten. She was also politically involved while living in Prague and at this time met Hilde Kothny who was to become a dear friend.

Although Friedl was able to obtain a visa for Palestine in 1938, she refused to leave and instead she and Pavel moved to Hronov where she worked as a textile designer. Despite the worsening situation in Czechoslovakia, Friedl painted but was not able to exhibit. In 1942, Friedl and Pavel were deported to Terezin in December of 1942. There she taught drawing to the imprisoned children, held exhibitions of their artwork and even did the costuming and sets for childrens' plays. She advocated for children being allowed to express their feelings through art rather than following a prescribed art format. Friedl was eventually deported to Auschwitz along with some of her young pupils in October of 1944 and gassed. Eventually over five thousand drawings made by the children of Terezin were discovered and now are exhibited in the Jewish Museum in Prague.

Fireflies in the Dark captures the essence of Friedl's work with the children of Terezin as well as their experience in the concentration camp, with the many reproductions of their artwork. For example, A Train Travelling Through a Night Landscape by Alice Guttamanova who died in September, 1943 effectively portrays "a train hurtling the night, carrying the prisoners into the unknown." with its dark bold lines amid a full moon. Other paintings such as Flowers and Butterflies by Margit Koretzova display beautiful colours that suggest an escape to a happier more peaceful realm. The overarching theme is how art helped these young children deal with the horrors of war and the struggle to live and even to die.

The author, Susan Goldman Rubin was able to meet some of the survivors of Terezin including Eva Stichova-Beldova, Helga Weissova-Hoskova, Kurt Jiri Kotouc and Doris Grozdanovicova. She also had access to the unpublished diaries written by some of the prisoners. All of this plus the help of numerous others contributed to a book which passes on the story of the children of Terezin to a new generation of young people.

Book Details:
Fireflies in the Dark by Susan Goldman Rubin
New York: Holiday House     2000
48 pp.

Irena Sendler by Susan Goldman Rubin

Irena Sendler and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto tells the story of a young Polish Catholic social worker who lived in Warsaw, Poland, in 1939. A petite woman, only 4 ft, 11inches, Irena watched in horror as the Nazis invaded her country and bombed beautiful Warsaw into ruins. When Poland surrendered on September 28, 1939, Irena joined the resistance movement of the Polish Socialist Party. Her goal was to save those whose lives were most endangered. When the Nazis began to focus on the Jews, Irena turned her attention to the Warsaw ghetto where thousands of Jews resided in horrible conditions.

In July 1942, the Nazis began transporting the Jews from the ghetto to Treblinka, a death camp. Irena knew that it might not be possible to save the adults, but she could try to save the children who were almost certain to die. She joined a new underground organization, Zegota, The Council for Aid to Jews, and working with the leader of the organization she organized and carried out the rescue many Jewish children. The young children were often secreted out of the ghetto in sacks, coffins or toolboxes.

Many of the rescued Jewish children  had to learn Catholic prayers and how to make the sign of the cross because they needed to be convincingly Catholic if stopped by Nazi patrols. Irena did not rescue the children in order to convert them to Catholicism, as some have claimed, but because "my heart told me to".

Irena Sendler

Eventually, Irena was captured by the Nazis and tortured but she refused to divulge any information. She was beaten so badly that both her legs and her feet were broken. Even when she was threatened with death, Irena did not waver.

It was always Irena's hope and intention to reunite the children rescued with their parents and so she kept a secret list of the children on a soft, transparent paper strip which was hidden inside a glass jar buried under an apple tree in Warsaw.

Irena Sendler and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto is a beautifully crafted picture book telling the remarkable story of Irena and her work in saving Jewish children during the Holocaust. The book is richly illustrated with oil paintings on canvas, enhancing the overall drama of her story, which only came to be known after the fall of the Communist regime in Poland.

Irena Sendler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008. She passed away that year.

Book Details:
Irena Sendler and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto by Susan Goldman Rubin.
New York: Holiday House      2011
40 pp.

A second book that was published in 2011, entitled Irena's Jars of Secrets also tells how Irena came to be involved in the rescuing of over 2500 Jewish children. Her father was a doctor who treated poor Jewish families in Warsaw, even if they could not pay. He impressed upon her the idea that one must always help those in need. When Irena entered the Warsaw Ghetto disguised as a nurse, she was overwhelmed by the suffering she saw and she became determined to help. When the Nazis began transporting the Jews to Treblinka, she knew that she must try to save as many children as possible.

In order to keep track of the children, Irena stored lists of their names in glass jars buried beneath an apple tree. After the war, the Jewish Congress attempted to reunited the rescued children with their parents, but sadly most were murdered in the death camps.

Irena Sendler's story remained untold throughout most of the 20th century but the Jewish people honoured her as Righteous Among the Nations in 1965. Finally with the fall of the communist government in Poland, her courage was rewarded with that country's highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle.

Irena Sendler never won a Nobel Prize although she was nominated in 2008. Sometimes, even the Nobel Prize committee gets it wrong. But to the many many people alive in 2008 directly as a result of the courage and sacrifice of Irena Sendler, it hardly matters. Their lives are a testament to her love, bravery and charity.

 Irena's Jars of Secrets is illustrated with the beautiful oil paintings of artist Ron Mazellan. Mazellan's piantings capture the fear and terror of the moment such as when the Jewish citizens were being rounded up and sent to the ghetto (above) or when they were fleeing the ghetto in secrecy (right).

This detailed picture book also contains an Afterword providing more details about Irena's life, a glossary, and a list of books and websites for further research.

Book Details:
Irena's Jars of Secrets by Marcia Vaughan
Illustrated by Ron Mazellan
New York: Lee & Low Books   2011