Yossel April 19, 1943

(2003 [July 2011])

[Title Page and Credits] (Table of Contents: 1)

credits, title page / 4 pages (report information)

Letters

typeset

Introduction (Table of Contents: 2)

foreword, introduction, preface, afterword / 3 pages (report information)

Script

Joe Kubert (credited)

Letters

typeset

Genre

non-fiction

Reprints

• from Yossel April 19, 1943 (ibooks, 2003 series) (October 2003)

Keywords

Brooklyn; cartoonist; fact; family; Holocaust; immigration; Jewish; Jews; memoir; World War II

Indexer Notes

Joe Kubert describes his family's coming to America in 1926, and the fate of their fellow Jews in their home town under Nazi rule. The story is an imagining of what his life and death might have been had they remained in Poland, had he grown up as Yossel rather than Joe.

Yossel (Table of Contents: 3)

comic story / 121 pages (report information)

Script

Joe Kubert (credited)

Pencils

Joe Kubert (credited)

Letters

John Roshell of Comicraft (credited as John Roshell of Comicraft)

Genre

drama; war

Characters

Yossel; Mama; Papa; Chaiya; Mordecai; the Rebbe; concentration-camp prisoners; Warsaw Ghetto prisoners; Warsaw Ghetto freedom fighters; German soldiers; concentration-camp guards; Tor (cameo); Hawkman (cameo); Johnny Cloud (cameo); Superman (cameo); the Flash [Jay Garrick] (cameo); Flash Gordon [Blysk Gordon] (cameo); Tarzan (cameo)

Synopsis

Yossel's family is forced into the Warsaw Ghetto, where his drawing entertains Nazi soldiers who spare him when his family is sent to the concentration camp. Yossel uses his visits to their barracks to plant a bomb. The Rebbe escapes from the concentration camp and details its horrors, convincing Jews in the Ghetto to fight. After a month Yossel's small group is trapped in a sewer; he keeps up spirits with his sketches until the final attack. The Jews empty their weapons at the Nazis before being wiped out. An officer puzzles over one of Yossel's sketches before tossing it into the sewer.

Reprints

• from Yossel April 19, 1943 (ibooks, 2003 series) (October 2003)

Keywords

Concentration camp; Holocaust; Jewish; Jews; Nazi; Poland; Warsaw Ghetto; World War II

Indexer Notes

"My original intention was to first pencil then ink my drawings. But, with my first preliminary sketches, I felt an immediacy in my pencil renderings that I wanted to retain." (From Joe Kubert's introduction). In his sketches Yossel imagines fantastic men and creatures -- many of them actually drawn by Joe in his long career.