The three eventually sought sanctuary in a Benedictine convent. Little Jewish Aneta eventually embraced symbols of her nanny's faith, and fiercely treasured the saints' medals she wore around her neck for divine protection. Yet she selflessly risked her own life to shelter the two children. This devout Catholic Pole was an anti-Semite in some respects. She records all the small indignities and petty cruelties inflicted upon her and her brother just as a child would register them. She vividly recalls all the tastes and smells of her childhood. She does not embellish, she does not invent. Almost miraculously she retains little Aneta's perspective as she puts down exactly what she saw and felt at the time. Besides being one of the most respected illustrators working today, Lobel is an exceptional writer. A brief visit to relatives in the Krakow ghetto has all the immediacy of a scene from Schindler's List. Their lives were now a series of deceptions, of begging for bread and staying always one step ahead of their enemies. But to hide the fact that he (unlike the Christian boys) had been circumcised, Niania disguised him as a girl and called them sisters. Aneta (as she was called then) was dark and obviously Semitic while her brother was blond and could pass for Polish. The only way to save the little boy and girl from being sent to the Krakow ghetto or a concentration camp was to pretend that they were her own. It was left to the children's beloved nanny, their Niania, to hide them from the invaders.

Forged papers saying that she was not a Jew protected her mother for a time. First her father, the owner of a chocolate factory, was gone.

Some people may groan, 'Oh, no, not another book about the Holocaust!' But this memoir is a unique survivor's tale, striking in its honesty, and a small masterpiece in its quiet way.

Almost 60 years later she has found the courage to describe those horrible times in a remarkable memoir for young readers, No Pretty Pictures (Greenwillow, $16). By Michael Patrick Hearn September 13, 1998Ĭaldecott Honor artist Anita Lobel was 5 years old when the Nazis entered Krakow, Poland, her birthplace.

No Pretty Pictures by Anita Lobel