 | |
| Author | Mona Golabek Lee Cohen |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Memoir |
| Publisher | Hachette Book Group |
| ISBN | 978-0-446-69027-0 |
The Children of Willesden Lane is a memoir by Mona Golabek, documenting the life of her mother, Lisa, from the time she left Vienna, Austria to the end of World War II. It has been adapted into a film and an organization formed in honor of the book, that is dedicated to empowering people with the arts.
Lisa Jura was a prodigy who hoped to become a pianist during pre-World War II Vienna. As Nazi attacks on Jews continue in her home country, her parents send her on the Kindertransport to London, England. Several days after arrival, she became a servant at a manor. Sometime later, though, she leaves the manor. Lisa then resides in a hostel for Jewish children on Willesden Lane, where she makes new friends. Continuing her interest in piano, she plays music, inspiring the other children through their problems. It's a story of kindness and love and compassion. [1] [2]
Joanna H. Kraus from Common Sense Media rated The Children of Willesden Lane five stars. [3] BookTrust described the book as "eye-opening". [4]
In 2018 the book was translated into Polish and published as Dzieci z Willesden Lane by Wydawnictwo Austeria. [5] [6]
The children's edition is a 2018 Sydney Taylor Book Award Notable Book for Older Readers. [7]
A theater adaptation of the book, The Pianist of Willesden Lane, was adapted and directed by Hershey Felder. [8] [9] [10]
BBC Films and Empire of the Sun producer Robert Shapiro produced a movie version of the book released in 2016.
The Hold On To Your Music Foundation has been created in honor of Lisa Jura. Its goal is to raise awareness of how arts can empower people through adversity.
Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit, was a Polish Jewish pediatrician, educator, children's author and pedagogue known as Pan Doktor or Stary Doktor. He was an early children's rights advocate, in 1919 drafting a childrens constitution.
Władysław Szpilman was a Polish-Jewish pianist, classical composer and Holocaust survivor. Szpilman is widely known as the central figure in the 2002 Roman Polanski film The Pianist, which was based on his autobiographical account of how he survived the German occupation of Warsaw. He is portrayed by American actor Adrien Brody.
Irena Stanisława Sendler (née Krzyżanowska), also referred to as Irena Sendlerowa in Poland, nom de guerreJolanta, was a Polish humanitarian, social worker, and nurse who served in the Polish Underground Resistance during World War II in German-occupied Warsaw. From October 1943 she was head of the children's section of Żegota, the Polish Council to Aid Jews.
The Kindertransport was an organised rescue effort of children from Nazi-controlled territory that took place in 1938–1939 during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 children, most of them Jewish, from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Free City of Danzig. The children were placed in British foster homes, hostels, schools, and farms. Often they were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust. The programme was supported, publicised, and encouraged by the British government, which waived the visa immigration requirements that were not within the ability of the British Jewish community to fulfil. The British government placed no numerical limit on the programme; it was the start of the Second World War that brought it to an end, by which time about 10,000 kindertransport children had been brought to the country.
Lisa del Giocondo was an Italian noblewoman and member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany. Her name was given to the Mona Lisa, her portrait commissioned by her husband and painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the Italian Renaissance.
Mona Lisa, Op. 31, is a 1915 opera by the German composer Max von Schillings on a libretto by Beatrice von Dovsky. It was dedicated to the Philosophy Faculty of the University of Heidelberg, where the composer was awarded the title of professor.
Fania Fénelon was a French pianist, composer and cabaret singer whose 1976 memoir, Sursis pour l'orchestre, about survival in the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz during the Holocaust was adapted as the 1980 television film, Playing for Time.
Lili Kraus was a Hungarian-born pianist.
Artur Grottger was a Polish Romantic painter and graphic artist, one of the most prominent artists of the mid 19th century under the partitions of Poland, despite a life cut short by incurable illness.
Dzierżąznapronounced[d͡ʑerˈʐɔ̃zna] is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Zgierz, within Zgierz County, Łódź Voivodeship, in central Poland. It lies approximately 8 kilometres (5 mi) north of Zgierz and 16 km (10 mi) north of the regional capital Łódź.
Hershey Felder is a pianist, actor, and playwright known for his portrayals of classical and American composers on the theatrical stage.
Mona Golabek is an American concert pianist, author, and radio host. She has appeared with many leading orchestras and made numerous recordings. Golabek co-wrote a book entitled The Children of Willesden Lane that chronicles her mother's experience with the Kindertransport which was published in 2002. A play titled The Pianist of Willesden Lane, based on the book, adapted and directed by Hershey Felder, and in which Golabek appeared in a one-woman show, opened at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles in April 2012. The play opened in London at the St James Theatre in January 2016.
Joanna of Pfirt was the Countess of Pfirt in her own right from 1324 and Duchess of Austria as consort of Duke Albert II from 1330 until her death.
Gertrud Kraus was an Israeli pioneer of modern dance in Israel.
The Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize is an annual British literary prize inaugurated in 1977. It is named after the host Jewish Quarterly and the prize's founder Harold Hyam Wingate. The award recognises Jewish and non-Jewish writers resident in the UK, British Commonwealth, Europe and Israel who "stimulate an interest in themes of Jewish concern while appealing to the general reader". As of 2011 the winner receives £4,000.
Trude Fleischmann was an Austrian-born American photographer. After becoming a notable society photographer in Vienna in the 1920s, she re-established her business in New York in 1940.
Anna Bikont is a Polish journalist for the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper in Warsaw. She is the author of several books, including My z Jedwabnego (2004) about the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom, which was published in English as The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne (2015). The French edition, Le crime et le silence, won the European Book Prize in 2011.
Ewa Kurek is a Polish historian specializing in Polish-Jewish history during World War II. She has been associated with the far-right, and her revisionist views regarding the Holocaust in Poland have been widely categorized as indicative of antisemitism and Holocaust denial.
Janina Strzembosz was a Polish dancer, choreographer, teacher, publicist, pianist, conductor and director, and one of the most acclaimed personas in Polish dance of the 20th century. A pupil of Isadora Duncan, Strzembosz herself taught several generations of dancers, choreographers and dance instructors.
Discography of a Polish soprano singer Ada Sari. The list includes all takes, even those unpublished. There is apparently no complete discography of this artist, only partial discographies and information at different sources.
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