CHARLOTTE SALOMON PAINTS HER LIFE

Reitman’s historical novel charts the tragic life of a Jewish artist in World War II Europe.

In 1939, Charlotte Salomon is a young Jewish artist fleeing Berlin. She heads to a place near Nice, France, where her grandparents live. While she is momentarily safe from the situation in Germany, life with her grandparents is not ideal as Charlotte strives to make time for her art. In 1940, after the death of Charlotte’s grandmother, Charlotte and her grandfather are arrested, and Charlotte is sent off to the Gurs Camp in the Pyrenées with thousands of other women. The conditions there are miserable, and the prisoners never know if they will be sent somewhere even more terrible (at least Charlotte manages to befriend some other artists). Although she despises her grandfather by this point, she is eventually released from Gurs so that she may care for him back in Nice. Not that the journey back to Nice is easy—nor is their relationship likely to improve. And though Charlotte will be able to turn more of her attention to her work, her days of relative safety are numbered. Charlotte Salomon was a real person, and the text brings to life her many trials. Readers can clearly imagine her lecherous grandfather, a person who says to her, “Why don’t you share the only bed with me? Please, crawl in. It’s only natural.” Charlotte’s story is compelling, partly due to some surprising twists (the fact that she got to leave the internment camp in Gurs at all is completely unexpected). Some details, though, are dwelled upon without much benefit. Early in the book, great attention is given to an incident in which Charlotte loses an art contest because she is Jewish; the scene is protracted and, considering what else Charlotte will face, not exactly momentous. Still, the story illuminates a complex person trapped in an unthinkable situation, enduring a time when “Everything was getting worse in this broken world.”

A vividly detailed rendering of a real life caught in a maelstrom of 20th-century horror.