The Girl Who Sang recounts the har­row­ing sto­ry of how Enia Feld, lat­er Estelle Nadel (1934 – 2023), sur­vived the Nazi occu­pa­tion of Poland and even­tu­al­ly immi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States. The graph­ic memoir’s title reflects the sig­nif­i­cance of her voice, which she would use to sing inven­tive and joy­ful songs before it was com­plete­ly sti­fled. Nei­ther her even­tu­al recov­ery from trau­ma nor her renewed abil­i­ty to per­form ever erase the sor­rows of her ear­li­er life. Her metic­u­lous nar­ra­tion and insights, com­bined with Sam­my Savos’s com­pas­sion­ate artis­tic vision, ensure that this sto­ry will not be forgotten.

Nadel’s mem­oir begins in 1939, when she lived in the small Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty of Borek, Poland. Their life may not have been idyl­lic, but from young Enia’s per­spec­tive, it was com­fort­able, defined by reli­gious tra­di­tion and a lov­ing extend­ed fam­i­ly. (She devotes sev­er­al pages to their Passover prepa­ra­tions, includ­ing the mak­ing of matzah.) Her father tend­ed a small farm, and her moth­er taught her the domes­tic skills need­ed to sus­tain their home. Some of their Chris­t­ian neigh­bors were friend­ly and kind.

When the dete­ri­o­rat­ing polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion became threat­en­ing to Jews, Enia’s father remained sto­ic, con­fi­dent that God would pro­tect them. Through­out the book, Nadel main­tains a non­judg­men­tal tone when describ­ing the ambiva­lent respons­es of her loved ones as they strug­gled to save one another’s lives. In one sec­tion, Enia’s broth­ers dis­cuss episodes of anti­semitism; in anoth­er, pan­els with a black back­ground and min­i­mal text show scenes of ter­ror. Enia sees a Nazi wield­ing scis­sors, with which he bru­tal­ly cuts an old Jew­ish man’s beard.

When Enia and her sur­viv­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers were for­tu­nate enough to find refuge in the Unit­ed States, new dif­fi­cul­ties replaced their dai­ly strug­gles for sur­vival. Nadel recalls her dis­ap­point­ment when her adop­tion by a Jew­ish Amer­i­can fam­i­ly per­ma­nent­ly sep­a­rat­ed her from her broth­ers. She says that she once held a grudge against her broth­er Shia/​Steve for being unable to keep the remain­ing sib­lings togeth­er, but that she lat­er for­gave him.

One unique aspect of the book appears in the back­mat­ter, where Savos describes her artis­tic tech­nique, demys­ti­fy­ing the cre­ation of art about the Holo­caust. This high­ly rec­om­mend­ed book also includes an exten­sive after­word with fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the events and peo­ple in it.