Jella Lepman and Her Library of Dreams by Katherine Paterson

Jella was born in 1891 in Stuttgart, Germany, the eldest daughter of a Jewish couple, Josef and Flora Lehmann. Her father owned a men's clothing store. Jella and her two sisters attended an elite academy that had been founded almost a century earlier by Queen Katharina. After graduation, Jella attended a boarding school near Lausanne, Switzerland.  When her education was finished, Jella, who was an accomplished musician, dreamed of becoming a concert pianist. However, her father would not allow this. Besides her passion for music, Jella also loved books and so she opened a reading room for the children of immigrants who came to work in the tobacco factory in Stuttgart.

In 1913, Jella married Gustav Lepman who was fourteen years her senior. Gustav had been born in Germany to American parents who had moved to the country to manage a duvet factory in Feuerbach. Within a few years, Gustav was drafted into the German army during World War I. Jella and Gustave had two children, Anne-Marie in 1918 and Gunther in 1921.

In 1922, tragedy struck when Gustav died of a heart attack likely brought on by the trauma he experienced during the war. He was forty-five years old. His insurance policy of one hundred thousand Reichsmarks was almost worthless due to inflation in Germany. This meant that Jella, now a thirty-one year old widow need to work.

Jella found work as a journalist, becoming editor of the Stuttgarter Neues Tagblatt (New Daily Paper), the first woman to edit the paper. She wrote about childrens' books and womens' issues. During this time, Jella became politically active, joining the German Democratic Party, becoming a leader in the women's section. She ran for a seat in the 1930 elections to the Reichstag. At this time Germany was in economic and political chaos, fearful of the threat from Russian communism. They blamed their Jewish citizens for the situation. A world wide depression made this situation even worse.

The leader of the National Socialist Party (the Nazi party) was Adolf Hitler. He promised the German people he would restore their country by establishing law and order, and ridding the country of communists and Jews. In 1933, Hitler, with the support of the German people and the industrialists, rose to power and began to enact his policies. Jella who was Jewish, lost her job. Eventually, in 1936 as the situation in Germany became increasingly dangerous, Jella and her children fled to Italy. However, Italy too was not safe as its leader, Benito Mussolini was aligned with Hitler. Fortunately an Italian friend found nineteen year old Anne-Marie a job in England, while Gunther was accepted into a boarding school there.  As a result Jella also emigrated to England.

She found work reviewing and cataloguing an Austrian Jewish novelist's literary papers, and worked as a journalist and editor for the BBC and the American Broadcasting Station in Europe. She also authored a book about women in Nazi Germany.

When the war was over in 1945, Jella and many other international journalists, including the women editors of American fashion magazines, were involved in publishing a new magazine. This magazine was called Frau and Welt (Women and World) and its purpose was to rehabilitate Europe so ruined by war.

Then Jella received a request to return to Germany to an "advisor on the cultural and educational needs of women and children". She would be working in the area of Germany that was occupied by the Allies, including the Americans. This was a startling request that shook Jella. However, she remembered the fear and loneliness she had witnessed in Jewish children of the Kindertransport.  She felt that German's children would need help to recover from the war. This was to become Jella's life work, rebuilding childrens' hearts and minds in Germany through books and art.

Discussion

Katherine Paterson, author of Newberry Medal winners, Bridge To Terabithia, and Jacob Have I Loved, has written an engaging account of the efforts of Jella Lepman to help a generation of children recover from the trauma of war. 

A tour by Jella through the Allied occupied zone revealed the total destruction of many cities she had once called home, cities such as Frankfurt and Stuttgart.  In addition she met German citizens, some of whom were deeply ashamed of their country's actions, like Professor Alfred Weber, and others like the porter at the Tagblatt Tower where Jella once worked who had acquiesced to the Nazi regime and published their propaganda. What profoundly touched her however, was the suffering of the children, many of whom were orphaned and lived on the street in gangs

Jella and her family had managed to escape the Holocaust and live in England during the war. In spite of the hatred shown by her by her own country, Jella now responded with compassion, especially towards Germany's children whom she believed were innocent and who were the key to a different future for Germany. Jella's empathy allowed her to see the effects of the war on the children. She believed that Germany's children "...will show the grown-ups the way to go forward." She believed one way to help Germany's children was using books as "nourishment for the soul." In Jella's mind, "...the first messengers of that peace will be these children's books..."  

Jella's determination and creative approach to this daunting task and any problems that she encountered are well portrayed. For example because so many German children's books were banned and destroyed by the Nazis, Jella needed to find books that would interest children and be suitable for an exhibition. Undaunted and with the backing of General McClure, Jella wrote letters to publishers in twenty countries pleading for picture books and art work by each country's children. The response was overwhelming and the International Exhibition of Children's Books opened on July 5, 1946. The exhibition was held in the repurposed Nazi museum known as Haus der Kunst (House of Art) in Munich. 

Jella was not content to just have an exhibition. She published paper copies of The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson, so that children could have their own copy to read. She also managed to convince Walt Disney to allow the showing of Snow White in Germany. The film had been released in 1937 but German children were not able to view the movie.  She had to overcome strong opposition in Germany and the United States to create an International Youth Library. Her lecture tour allowed her to meet with Eleanor Roosevelt who was very supportive of Jella's work but she also encountered prejudice against opening the children's library in Germany which had unleashed so much suffering on the world. Jella was up to the task of countering this by asking people to give Germany's children a chance. Amid the growing tensions between the United States and Soviet Russia, the International Youth Library opened in 1949 in Munich. Jella's efforts to foster peace through childrens books continued with the formation of IBBY or International Board on Books for Young People. She even travelled to the Middle East promoting the use of children's books as a way to foster peace.

Helping to portrayed Jella Lepman's work are the illustrations by Sally Deng, rendered in pencil and digitally coloured. Katherine Paterson has written an informative and engaging picture book about a woman who seems to be largely unknown today. But Jella Lepman showed the world what forgiveness, empathy and compassion can accomplish along with the power of books.

Book Details:

Jella Lepman and Her Library of Dreams by Katherine Paterson

San Francisco: Handprint Books    2025
105 pp.