A Jew in Communist Prague: Loss of Innocence
"A Jew in Communist Prague: Loss of Innocence" is a graphic novel set in 1950s Prague during the oppressive regime of Communist Czechoslovakia. The story follows thirteen-year-old Jonas Finkel, whose life spirals into turmoil after the arrest of his father, Dr. Finkel, a Jewish professor, under mysterious circumstances. As Jonas grapples with ostracism and discrimination from peers and adults alike, he and his mother, Edith, face the harsh realities of financial instability and government indifference amidst a backdrop of rising anti-Semitism. The narrative explores themes of captivity, loss, and the struggle for identity, effectively portraying the emotional and psychological impact of political repression on an innocent family. The artwork is characterized by realistic illustrations that enhance the somber tone of the story, depicting the stark contrasts between Jonas's past happiness and his current despair. By weaving personal and political narratives, the novel critiques the hypocrisy of Communist ideology, while also highlighting the resilience of its characters in the face of adversity. This work is notable not only for its poignant storytelling but also for being one of the early graphic novels to employ the bildungsroman structure, focusing on the protagonist's growth amid societal challenges.
A Jew in Communist Prague: Loss of Innocence
AUTHOR: Giardino, Vittorio
ARTIST: Vittorio Giardino (illustrator)
PUBLISHER: Rizzoli Lizard (Italian); NBM (English)
FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION:Jonas Fink: L’infanzia, 1994 (English translation, 1997)
Publication History
A Jew in Communist Prague: 1. Loss of Innocence was written in Italian byVittorio Giardino and published in 1994 under the title Jonas Fink: L’infanzia (Jonas Fink: Childhood). The Italian version was published by Rizzoli Lizard, which specializes in graphic novels by Italian writers. Based in Milan, the company was founded by Hugo Pratt in 1993. Rizzoli Lizard has also published graphic novels by Pratt, Hergé, Milo Manara, and Marjane Satrapi.
Jonas Fink: L’infanzia was translated by Jacinthe Leclerc and published under the strikingly different title A Jew in Communist Prague: 1. Loss of Innocence in 1997 by ComicsLit, an imprint of NBM. The next two novels in the series, A Jew in Communist Prague: 2. Adolescence and A Jew in Communist Prague: 3. Rebellion were subsequently published by ComicsLit. NBM is known as an “alternative” comics publisher for the simple reason that it does not publish superhero comics. ComicsLit specializes in graphic narratives that are psychological explorations of ordinary people’s lives. Other ComicsLit titles include adaptations of À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-1927; Remembrance of Things Past, 1922-1931)by Marcel Proust and The Jungle (1906) by Upton Sinclair. ComicsLit also published translations of Giardino’s Max Friedman series of spy graphic novels.
Plot
A Jew in Communist Prague is a historical novel set in 1950 in the city of Prague in communist Czechoslovakia. The police arrest Dr. Finkel, a Jewish, middle-class professor. No cause for the arrest is given, nor is any information about his welfare relayed to his wife and thirteen-year-old son, Jonas.
The innocent Jonas suffers as a result of his father’s arrest. Many of his peers ostracize him, and some attack him. Jonas is discriminated against by both children and adults. He is refused entry into college, despite his intelligence and high marks. When his teacher appeals to the director of his school board to let Jonas enroll, the director bluntly states that not everyone can be provided with an education and that “inevitably, there must be some outcasts.” Although the government officials claim that they distrust the Finkels because of their affluent background, it becomes increasingly obvious that they are motivated by anti-Semitism.
While Jonas struggles for acceptance from his peers, his mother, Edith, seeks justice for, or at least some news of, her husband. Her persistence yields few results. She writes letters to the authorities, including the justice department, various party committees, and the presidium. She receives no response and no explanation, only threats and castigation from Comrade Commissioner Murad, the government official assigned to her case.
The Finkels also struggle financially, and their bank account is frozen. While Edith worked as a French tutor before her husband was incarcerated, Comrade Murad forbids her from teaching without a license and insists that she find work at a factory instead. Jonas becomes an errand boy for a seamstress, but he is soon fired. A middle-aged client of the seamstress seduces Jonas. When her husband catches the two locked in an embrace, she claims that the boy assaulted her, and Jonas loses his job as a result.
Finally, the family receives news from an elusive stranger who was imprisoned with Dr. Finkel. The stranger tells Edith that her husband will be released in ten years. Although this is hardly the verdict for which they were hoping, Edith and Jonas have already suffered so deeply that even this scrap of information is a great consolation.
Characters
•Jonas Finkel, the protagonist, is a thirteen-year-old boy with green eyes and black hair. Before his father is taken prisoner, he is a happy, well-adjusted boy, but as his life becomes increasingly bleak, he grows sullen and occasionally violent. He is fond of toy airplanes and spends hours building and launching them. Midway through the novel, he has a sexual awakening with Mrs. Laparik.
•Dr. Finkel is Jonas’s father and a wise, kind professor with blond hair and glasses. He is arrested for mysterious reasons and eventually imprisoned. It is rumored that he faces charges of counterrevolutionary activities and espionage, although he has never been involved in such activities.
•Edith Finkel is the wife of Dr. Finkel and a dark-haired beauty with clear blue eyes. Bold and tenacious, she is determined to do all she can to help her husband, or at least find out what the justice system has accused him of. She lost all her relatives during the Holocaust.
•Hanka is a close friend of Edith Finkel. While nearly all of Edith’s friends abandon her out of fear of being found “guilty by association,” Hanka helps Edith and her son make ends meet. Hanka finds Jonas a job working for her seamstress.
•Comrade Commissioner Murad, an antagonist, is a haughty, cruel, and anti-Semitic government official who impedes Edith Finkel’s efforts to determine what happened to her husband. He is an archetype of Communist hypocrisy.
•Mrs. Laparik is a chubby, middle-aged married woman who seduces Jonas. Although she is clearly attracted to Jonas and is flattered by his attention, she treats him callously and lies to her husband about who initiated the relationship.
•The nameless former prisoner is an emaciated middle-aged man who shared a prison cell with Dr. Finkel. He tells Jonas and his mother that Dr. Finkel will be released from prison in ten years.
Artistic Style
A Jew in Communist Prague is a work of realistic fiction, and its artwork is similarly realistic. The illustrations are reminiscent of cinematography, as the story moves smoothly from frame to frame. Giardino introduces pauses in the action by repeating images that show subtle changes in characters’ movements and faces. This technique is particularly effective in a scene depicting Dr. Finkel pacing silently back and forth in a prison cell. Giardino takes his time with the unfolding narrative, allowing the reader to delve into the images and reflect on the rich, subtle metaphors contained within.
The first few pages of the novel contain vividly colored illustrations of a family picnic in a green meadow, contrasting with the setting of the rest of the narrative. After Dr. Finkel is arrested, colors become muted, even stark, and reflect the weary, melancholic mood of the characters and the era. Although the narrative cycles through the seasons, most of the scenes take place in winter. The lush green that begins the novel is never revisited. When Giardino depicts grass in outdoor scenes, there is barely any of it, and it is full of detritus.
Giardino conveys the characters’ thoughts and feelings through subtle changes in their facial expressions. He is particularly attentive when drawing his characters’ eyes, close-ups of which frequently punctuate critical points in the plot. Characters rarely smile and frequently appear worried or otherwise troubled.
The frames are arranged in a conventional, sequential manner, with occasional deviations in frame shape and size for dramatic effect. The lettering is tight and orderly and always confined to a speech bubble. One exception is the novel’s preface, which is depicted as a letter penned by a fictionalized version of the author.
Themes
The story exposes the injustice and hypocrisy of the Communist junta in Czechoslovakia in 1950. Giardino continually juxtaposes the Communist rhetoric about freeing the people with the reality: These Communist leaders are no less oppressive than their predecessors.
The central theme of the novel is captivity and the resulting demoralization. Before his arrest, Dr. Finkel shows his son a cicada. The cicada flies away, and Dr. Finkel explains that cicadas do not trust humans because children often capture them and confine them in jars. He tells Jonas that cicadas cease to sing when they are in captivity. The same is true of Dr. Finkel; in a scene depicting his imprisonment, he is entirely silent. After Dr. Finkel has been imprisoned for a while, Jonas kills a cicada by squashing it with his shoe. Thus, a victim of violence becomes a perpetrator of violence. However, by killing the cicada, Jonas also prevents it from being caught and imprisoned like his father.
Another key symbol is Jonas’s toy plane. Jonas continually tries to launch the plane into the air, but he encounters various obstacles. At one point, a playground bully tries to take Jonas’s airplane. As Jonas struggles to get it back, he inadvertently rips it. After this, the bully and his friends beat up Jonas and his friend Jiri. Jiri distances himself from Jonas, possibly to protect himself from further injury. Jonas finally gets the plane to fly, but by that point, Jiri has abandoned him. As a result, Jonas loses interest in the plane and gives it to the boys who bullied him. Thus, the story implies that although Jonas has learned to fly, this achievement is of no value to him without a friend to share in his success.
Anti-Semitism is a key aspect of the story. Government officials claim that they have just cause for targeting Dr. Finkel, but their contempt for Finkel’s cultural background evidently plays a significant role in their actions. By depicting this prejudice, Giardino critiques the motives of Communist leaders at the time.
Impact
In genre and structure, A Jew in Communist Prague: 1. Loss of Innocence can be described as a bildungsroman, a novel about a character’s formative years. Typically, the protagonist of a bildungsroman wrestles with ethical and identity crises throughout his or her growth from childhood to adulthood. Frequently, bildungsroman protagonists must reject the social mores of the people who surround them in order to live authentically and achieve self-realization. Although the bildungsroman structure is common in literary fiction, it is relatively rare in graphic novels; A Jew in Communist Prague: 1. Loss of Innocence was one of the first. A number of bildungsroman graphic novels were published in the early 2000’s, including Paul Has a Summer Job (2003) by Michel Rabagliati and Persepolis (2000) by Marjane Satrapi.
A Jew in Communist Prague: 1. Loss of Innocence received enthusiastic praise from The Washington Post, Booklist, and Kirkus Reviews. Publishers Weekly rated it one of the best comics of 1997. The other graphic novels in the trilogy also enjoyed critical acclaim.
Further Reading
Kuper, Peter. Give It Up! and Other Stories by Franz Kafka (1995).
Lutes, Jason. Berlin: City of Stones (1996-2000).
Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis (2000).
Bibliography
Curtis, Michael. “Antisemitism.” In The Oxford Companion to the Politics of the World, edited by Joel Krieger. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Morgenstern, Karl. “On the Nature of the Bildungsroman.” Translated by Tobias Boes. PMLA: Publications of the Modern LanguageAssociation of America 124, no. 2 (March, 2009): 647-659.
Schwarz, Gretchen, and Christina Crenshaw. “Old Media, New Media: The Graphic Novel as Bildungsroman.” Journal of Media Literacy Education 3, no. 1 (2011).
Wolchik, Susan L. “Czechoslovakia.” In The Oxford Companion to the Politics of the World, edited by Joel Krieger. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.