The Plot: Paper Hearts, Meg Wiviott's 2015 historical verse novel, is based upon the true story of the group of young women who survived the Holocaust, experienced the horrors of Auschwitz, and endured the death marches at the end of the war. Wiviott's narrative focuses specifically on two young women, Fania and Zlatka, who became friends and worked together as part of the Union Kommando (work squad) for the Weichsel Union Metallwerke (private factory in Auschwitz that made munitions for the Third Reich). The narrative of Paper Hearts focuses not only on the historical events, but also on the friendship and experiences of Fania and Zlatka and one specific act of defiance and love-- Zlatka's creation of a birthday card for Fania's 20th birthday. Wiviott was inspired to tell this story after seeing "Fania's Heart" on display at the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre. The author notes in her "What Is True?" section at the end of the verse novel that she relied upon "the USC Shoah Foundation's audiovisual testimonies of Fania Fainer (Fania Landau) and Zulema Pitluk (Zlatka Sznaiderhauz), the film documentary The Heart of Auschwitz (Ad Hoc Films), the testimony given by Zlatka on the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre website, and several e-mail and telephone conversations with Fania's daughter" (329). The narrative consists of fourteen chapters which alternate the first person perspectives of Fania and Zlatka. Both girls' narrative begins with their experiences living in different ghettos; Zlatka lives in Pruzany ghetto with her parents and three siblings, and Fania lives in Bialystok with her parents and two siblings. Zlatka observes Fania upon their arrival in Auschwitz; Zlatka is alone, having been separated from her family, and Fania is with only her younger sister Necha. Necha eventually becomes ill and is taken to Block 25, where prisoners were housed before they were sent to the gas chambers. Sick with despair, Fania begins to lose hope, and it is only her friendship with Zlatka that brings her back from the brink.The Poetry: Wiviott, like several other verse novelists reviewed on this blog, is a graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts's MFA program in writing for children and young adults. Her verse novel is full of lyricism, imagery, and music that makes her exploration of this historical moment fresh. For example, in the poem "74207," Fania meditates upon the landscape of Auschwitz Birkenau and her body:
Just outside the barbed-wire fence,
A stand of birches.
I'd never seen trees the color of ghosts.
Bark streaked with black,
Lashes on the skin.
Blending with the
Winter sky
....
My forearm,
Thin as paper,
Losing luster,
Scarred with black. (117)In this poem, the haunting image of ghost trees and the dull landscape is richly mirrored in Fania's body. Other poems, like "Coping," provide similarly grim representations of life during the Holocaust. In this poem, Zlatka watches a horrible scene unfold on a spring day: "Upwind from the chimneys / blue sky hung like a promise / in the air." Zlatka describes watching three girls holding hands who "walked past us / toward the / shadow of the chimneys" and the electrified fence: "one girl lifted her hand to the fence... / Death rippled / through her fingers / radiated to the others" (212).
The Page: One unique thing about Paper Hearts is its inclusion of the image of Fania's paper heart and its incorporation of translations of the inscriptions inside the heart card throughout the last half of the narrative. Each of these translation pages is a darker gray color and includes an image of stitching at the edge of the page. One of the final pages of the narrative also includes a reproduced image of the actual heart on display at the Holocaust Memorial Centre. These elements, along with the glossary, bibliography, and author's "What Is True?" sections contribute to the construction of the verse novel as a whole and link the narrative to the actual historical events it portrays.Meg Wiviott's Paper Hearts was a beautiful and fresh historical verse narrative. I give it four stars and highly recommend it.
