The Promise by Pnina Bat Zvi and Margie Wolfe

The Promise tells the true story of two sisters who keep a promise they make to their mother to always stay together.

The two sisters, Rachel and Toby lived in the town of Wyezmnik in Poland, They were Hsaidic Jews, attending a Jewish girls school in the afternoon, after going to public school
in the mornings. Their father was a Talmud scholar who earned his living by repairing cooking pots.  The two sisters were very different in personality with Toby being curious and brave, while Rachel was calm and intelligent.

The Promise tells the story of  how they managed to stay together in order to survive the horrors of Auschwitz.

Their story beings with Rachel and Toby waking up to another brutal day in Auschwitz. Toby reassures Rachel that she has the tin of shoe paste containing gold coins safely in her pocket. She remembers back to the night the Nazis came and took all the Jewish adults from their town. Their mother, hoping to help her daughters survive, gave Toby the tin containing three gold coins and made her promise that they would do whatever was necessary to stay together.

Each day they build a wall of heavy stones, only to tear it down the next day. The work is exhausting and pointless, designed to torture, weaken and kill the inmates. Anyone who cannot get out of bed to work disappears. So one day when Rachel becomes ill, Toby and the other girls in Barrack 25 do everything they can to help Rachel try to recover overnight. But Rachel is too ill to line up for work as usual. When Toby returns at the end of the day, she finds her beloved sister has been taken away. Toby cannot accept this, knowing that to abandon Rachel will mean losing her forever. She learns where her sister has been taken and realizes that now might be the time to use the gold coins safely hidden in the tin.

Discussion

Illustration by Isabelle Cardinal

The Promise was written by Pnina Bat Zvi who is Rachel's daughter, and Margie Wolfe who is the daughter of Toby. The women often heard the story of their mothers' Holocaust experiences and the special promise they made, when they were growing up. The two authors, close cousins, decided to honour the memory of their mothers and the events they endured by telling their story.

To portray the events in the story, renowned illustrator Isabell Cardinal created digital collages by combining her own artwork with cutouts from Victorian era photographs. This technique lends a unique look to The Promise, with the cutouts of faces capturing the various emotions of anger, fear, sorrow, tenderness and concern. Cardinal is able to capture the pathos of the sisters' situation in a way that is real to young readers.

The Promise is a touching account of a promise kept, of loyalty, courage and perseverance during a very dark time in history. A short Epilogue at the back of the book briefly tells their story and has photographs of Toby and Rachel as well as the authors.

Book Details:

The Promise by Pnina Bat Zvi and Margie Wolfe
Toronto: Second Story Press       2018