THE GIRL WHO SANG

The true story of how a music-loving Jewish girl survived the Nazis and rebuilt her life in America.

Enia Feld was 5 when the Nazis invaded Poland. At first, even as her mother sewed the Star of David onto her clothes, Enia “didn’t know to be scared,” but violence soon came to the family. Suddenly warned that they must flee, Enia, two older brothers, and her mother managed to escape and seek protection from a neighbor. After years of hiding, their mother’s death, and the end of the war, the siblings ended up in an Austrian displaced persons camp and then on a ship to New York. Enia felt deep gratitude toward her rescuers and contemplated the reasons why some people helped, and others betrayed them. In the U.S., the three Felds took new names, and Enia became Estelle. Her brothers found work, and despite her wish to stay together, they arranged for her to be adopted by the Nadels, whose only child had died in combat. Told in five parts, Nadel’s story presents readers with a picture of her life before (“I thought we would be this happy forever”), during, and—crucially—after the war. Savos’ exceptionally powerful illustrations convey the extremes of human emotion, make original use of different perspectives, and are both cinematic and intimate; they also do not shy away from accurately portraying the hardships and violence.

Sweeping, stark, tragic, and triumphant.