Sequential Art

Born on May 17, 1910. In Warsaw, Poland. Solomon Radasky lived through the two most disturbing and horrifying time The Warsaw ghettos and the concentration camps. His mother had him at age sixteen. At the time of the holocaust Solomon had to be forced into hiding with his mother Carmen Radasky. Was born on June 17, 1894. In Warsaw, Poland. Carmen was Solomon’s mother. Her husband was killed when coming back from the grocery stores. Carmen had to find out by his girlfriend. Her husband cheated on Carmen. Instead of going off in anger and starting a hissy fit she invited the young women into her house to talk thing over and look upon the death. Carmen had a devious plan to get the young women drunk enough for she will do what ever Carmen says. So it worked Carmen got the young women drunk enough that she had her cut off her of finger by biting it off herself. Slowly but surely Carmen starts to torture her until her dieing death. After that that’s when her and her son Solomon went into hiding. But what he didn’t know was that he was going to helped by a Nazi that did not oblige be the rules with Hitler. Along the way while there were in hiding there were being followed by a Nazi who was armed with a axe on the back and a 9 mm pistol in hand. The Nazi enters the building in which there were hiding in and the Nazi finds Solomon and his mother together they start running. The Nazi goes after them shooting at them. Solomon is in front of his mom leaving her open for getting shot. The Nazi ran out of ammo and takes his axe and throws it and hits Solomon’s mother and collapsing on Solomon making the Nazi think that he got them both and just left them there. Solomon woke up five minutes later after being knocked out. He looks at his shirt and is wondering why he has blood on his shirt looking around for his mom he finds out his answer. After that that’s when her and her son Solomon went into hiding. And that’s when Carmen’s time came to early she was murdered by a Nazi Leader name Adolf Gevanavitch. Adolf Gevanavitch is A Nazi leader who has an extended background. At first Gevanavitch was against the ideas of Adolf Hitler. Gevanavitch’s ideas were first to help ever Jew to escape the endless dangers. Until he was caught by two Nazi’s. These two Nazis saw what he was doing and tortured him like they were doing to the Jews. They slashed him until he was out cold. They put him in a chemical room. Not with chemicals but sucking out all the oxygen from the room leaving him to pass out. After his torment he was sent straight to talk with Adolf Hitler. Gevanavitch was left with two options. Either die there and now or to serve as captain. Gevanavitch was terrified of death so he chose to lead as captain on Hitler right had. He served Hitler by delivering Hitler Jews and later being promoted to Adolf Hitler’s first mate. Hitler was astonished by the ways Gevanavitch changed. So he gave him a quest to hunt down two Jews. Their names were Carmen Radasky and Solomon Radasky. Although he thought he killed both of them by throwing an axe he soon realizes that he only killed one. When Hitler gets word of this he is furious so he puts him in a gas chamber dieing in a matter of a few seconds.

After finding his mother dead he went into further hiding. While Solomon has been moving in his hiding he runs into his friend from grade school. It turns out to be that his friend was a Nazi, and he turned good just to help his friend out. But he also runs into his good friend Adalwolf Germonvock since grade school that he lost contact from because of the holocaust. Adalwolf is a good friend of Solomons. He runs into him while Solomon is trying to run away. His background isn’t all that fabulous. He has been in exile since after grade school. He was gone for ten years. Adalwolf was a scared Jew. He was hiding because his family committed a crime against Hitler. His parents insulted him with paintings on the wall saying profanities and humiliating him by drawing on his face in public photos. They knew it was his parents because they left their family mark on it. So one day Hitler sent two of his men after his parents they died but Adalwolf survived. That’s when he decided to go into exile. During his exile he ran into his friend but running into him might have been the worst mistake he has done in his whole entire time during his exile. What he didn’t know was that Solomon was being chased and Adalwolf had already promised that he will stay with Solomon. So Adalwolf decides to give Solomon this number he tells him if that if he was in any danger to call that number. An hour later Adalwolf was found dead in the side streets lashed, cut, burned, and shot five times three times in the legs and twice in the head. What Solomon didn’t know is that the number Adalwolf gave him was a number to a Nazi, but a Nazi that wants to help. He also doesn’t know that all Adalwolf’s belongings are now Solomons. Solomon now, thanks to Adalwolf, Solomon now has about ten thousand dollars with him for anything he is in need of. He looked at the number that Adalwolf gave him, and saw a name that was Edward Bliart. Edward was the Nazi helper that was on the other side of the phone line when Solomon calls in the mist of his dangers. The reason Edward decided to help out the Jews because he just gave it some thinking if his family was thinking against Hitler’s thinking would he want to kill them…no. That was his motivation to save thousands and thousands of Jews. Hitler had suspected about what he was doing so he brought him in for his meeting. He was beaten and burned and warned not to be helping them out. That’s when he told himself that he has to be much, much more secretive on what he was doing. Yes he didn’t give up on them. One day he gets a call from Solomon later Solomon is invited to Edwards house. Once he gets there Edward goes over his rules. And the were that he is limited to one person to give the number to. But what Edward didn’t know was that after Solomon found out that the number that he called was truly helpful he gave it to ten other people in need. Edward was soon to be doomed. After Solomon found out that that was his limit well obviously Edward was outraged. There was only one thing left to do help Solomon out and leave. For he knew that with that many people knowing there was bound to be at least one who was on the Nazis side. Edward gave Solomon a 9 mm pistol with three cases of ammunition. He also gave Solomon food which Solomon has not eaten in about three days it was a feast. Solomon decided to give Edward one thousand dollars but he didn’t know that it was no use giving him that much when they were caught and when they killed Edward and sent Solomon to the concentration camps. Solomons time in the concentration camps was brutal he spent his time counting the days he spent. In Birkenau, Solomon spent about a total of two years four months two weeks and two days when he finally heard of an escape plan from his fellow peers. This plan didn’t go so fast they had to figure out the daily plans for guards so once the guards went to lunch at noon every day they were able to set free about five men every day. Solomon was the first to leave the camps since he helped the most with the plan. He now lives happily with a wife and two kids.

Persepolis

Throughout this week my Humanities class endured on an adventure of reading a graphic novel on Persepolis. This graphic novel is is a memoir of the author Marjane Satrapi. Its a story based on four years of her childhood. She came from a family far from being proletariat to being decadent. Her childhood is during the Islamic Revolution. Marji goes through so many things and different epidemics throughout this whole book it shows how she changes and how she is more interested in what’s going on in her country. At this time the biggest was the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. 1978 was the beginning of the book when Marji was ten, the revolution started. The revolution was between the people of Iran and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the king of Iran, the revolution was later named the Islamic revolution. The following year in 1980, Reza said the girls had to wear veils(head scarf) to school, and that bilingual schools had to be shut down, because it was a symbol of capitalism. (girls and boys could no longer go to the same school together. The girls did not like to wear the veil, because they never understood why they had to, and because the year before they attended a French non-religious school were the veil was mandatory. These new laws from the king put children at a depressive state because they were separated from their friends.

Iranians didn't like the new laws he put in place so they demonstrated to make him leave office. Iranians who were protesting were either Islamic fundamentalists or people with different views but were still in to take down the king. Because of these demonstrations people were either ended up dead or severely injured by the king’s army and secret police. The King locked 400 people in a cinema and burned it down; he would not let anyone help them. The fire department arrived forty minutes later and he told everybody it was some religious fanatics that did this horrific crime, truth be told it was actually him. Iranians then wanted their protest to be far from being clandestine. They were veritably set on having the King leave office. Towards the end of the beginning of the book Marjane Satrapi Brings up the day of "Black Friday". Black Friday was the day of the most killings in a demonstration. Thousands secular of protesters died by the kings men. Some of these protesters were martyrs. The King had a monarchy which the people wanted to take down and replace with an Islamic Republic. After Mohammad Reza Pahlavi then tries to have a bit more of a democracy but citizens were taking down his statue and burning his pictures. So finally, he left his rein, that’s when the people had the biggest celebration in the history of Iran. Marjane brings it up because that was the day she did not want to listen to her parents when they said to stay and not go protesting. Later towards the end of the book, the Iranian fundamentalist tried to have their Iraqi Shiite allies to turns against Saddam. Saddam did not like this so he invaded Iran to start the beginning of the Iraq-Iran war. In 1982 this international war became a much bigger deal. Anyone who showed resistance to the regime was executed. Iraq attacked Iran and used their reservoir of scud missiles to bomb the city of Tehran. Iran later struck back with 140 F-145 fighter planes to bomb Baghdad. The war had become worse that Iran had started recruiting children into battle. They put into the minds of the fourteen year olds boys that were recruited that life after death is a better place and that they will get 72 virgins. Just to defend their country. When Marji learned that the city of Tehran was bombed she became furious. She started to gain more knowledge and she wanted revenge. This grew in Marji throughout the whole book. Her knowledge grew every time some thing bad would happen to her country. Marji starts to be rebellious by skipping school and hanging out with older kids, smoking, dressing like a little punk rocker. Since Iraq has been bombing Iran this whole time it was getting to the time were one of the bombs came close to where she lived. And it did. The bomb hit Marji's neighbors house, the Baba-levy's. Marji's friend Neda was in the house while the bomb landed. After the incident, Marji became more rebellious than she had ever been. She started talking back to one of her teachers and gets expelled for hitting her later on. Her mother found out and started yelling at her saying what they do to young girls when they get arrested. At her new school, she had to mourn two times a day for the soldiers who had died in battle. All these events in her life shaped her perception of things. He didn't really have a perception of things in the beginning but towards the end her understanding of things changed. She viewed her family as people that cared about their country, and strongly believe in freedom. She viewed her country as a place that is strict, and a place that had a lot of problems. She viewed herself as someone different than the rest, and someone that cares about their country.

What I think happens next after Marji goes to France is that she becomes more out there and doesn't hide from every one. She will eventually make a friend that will encourage her to write a novel of her childhood and that’s how I got to read this book.

This graphic novel was one of the best I have read. It shows that with the slightest picture you can put so much emotion into your book or story. If this book was written like any other it would had not an excitement for me because it’s just like a history book. Marjane wrote it in the best way possible for kids to learn while they see what she means. Now that I am finished with the book i now want to read the sequel Persepolis: The Story of a Return.