The Other Side of the Wall
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2.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Simon Schwartz was born in 1982 in East Germany, at a time when the repressive Socialist Unity Party of Germany controlled the area. Shortly before Simon's birth, his parents decided to leave their home in search of greater freedoms on the other side of the Berlin Wall. But East German authorities did not allow the Schwartzes to leave for almost three years. In the meantime, Simon's parents struggled with the costs of their decision: the loss of work, the attention of the East German secret police, and the fragmentation of their family.
In his debut graphic novel, Simon Schwartz tells the true story of his parents' coming of age in East Germany, their rejection of the communist way of life, and the challenges of leaving that world behind.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Watkinson's graceful translation, German author-illustrator Schwartz charts each painful step of his parents' departure from East Germany. Black-and-white panels set amid the grim institutional architecture of post-WWII East Berlin record the courtship of Schwartz's focused father and artistic mother, who meet as university students and, despite their differences, realize that they're attracted to one another. "You're in the church?" he asks disbelievingly; just as disbelievingly, she counters, "You're in the party?" When the two begin to spend time with dissidents, and the state apparatus starts to close around them, they apply for an exit permit. But their departure is blocked, and Schwartz describes with anguish the family's alienation from his father's parents and its persecution by the Stasi, the East German secret police. The story suffers somewhat from the way Schwartz shuffles back and forth between the family's time pre- and post-emigration; it's not always clear what's happening when. Complex political undercurrents demand a lot from readers, too, but Schwartz's smart, probing account makes this piece of history matter. Ages 12 up.
