La bambina col cappotto rosso

by Roma Ligocka, Marina Buttarelli (Translator)

I "bambini nascosti": sono così stati definiti gli ebrei che durante l'Olocausto avevano meno di 14 anni e che sono miracolosamente sopravvissuti. A questa generazione appartiene Roma Ligocka, ebrea polacca, che in una Cracovia messa a ferro e fuoco dai tedeschi riesce a scampare alle persecuzioni razziali e alla guerra. Non fa quasi a tempo a sfuggire all'orrore nazista che già si trova ad affrontarne un altro: il comunismo. All'inizio la entusiasmano i suoi principi egualitari, ma presto i compagni di classe le rinfacciano il fatto che gli ebrei hanno ucciso il Redentore. Quando finalmente l'Occidente libero le apre le sue porte, Roma si può affermare come autrice di teatro e adesso può affrontare anche i suoi dolorosi ricordi.

Genres: Nonfiction, Holocaust, History, Memoir, World War II, War, Historical

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

A Polish costume designer, writer, and painter and the cousin of Roman Polański.

She was born in a Jewish family in Cracow a few years before the WWII. During the German occupation of Poland her family was persecuted by the Nazis - her father was incarcerated, first in the Płaszów and then Auschwitz concentration camps. In 1940 she was taken with her mother to the Kraków Ghetto but before the end of the ghetto in 1943 they fled and hid with a Polish family.

In 1965 she and her husband Jan Biczycki left the Communist Poland and moved to Munich, Germany where she continued with her set design assignments.
The traumatic war experiences are reflected in her personal life. For some time in her life she was addicted to various drugs but she recovered.

Reviews

[Nikola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bardziej takie 2,5-2,75 bo strasznie się przy niej męczyłam.

[Jeanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yes this is a harrowing story about this little girl and a fascinating insight to what it must have been like in Krakow at that time. Sadly I did not warm to the author. She came across as obsessed with herself. Throughout the book she seems to want to put across how beautiful she was and how men would pursue her and ask to marry her at the drop of a hat. This may well be the case but I really felt I did not need this information.
This author, despite her terrible childhood, did not ever have to endure being in a concentration camp. You can walk away, as she did, from an alcoholic. You could not walk away from Auschwitz. She should not have put this comment in the book. Also, there is a theme throughout the book about her wanting to disappear or be invisible. Despite this she still tells us how she would dress in colourful clothes and low cut tops. Of course she has been mentally damaged by her past and I do feel for all of the children who endured what she did and far worse. But I get a sense of this woman capitalising on her past in a way which I find a little irritating. I also think the family who kept taking them into their home were not given as much attention as they deserved. We are told, Manuella, the lovely daughter of this family had died. The author idolised this young woman but all we are told is that she is dead. I wanted to know more about her and how she came to die. I was also surprised to learn that the picture of the little girl in the red coat was not in fact the author - she just 'recognised' herself in her. I imagine so did many many other children.

[Ingrid · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars.
Unfortunately I didn't like Roma much. The story of her life started in the ghetto of Krakow at the beginning of the war. It is told with a great distance, the words didn't reach my heart.

[joyce g · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brutally beautiful.

[Meaghan · Rating 2 out of 5]

It would really be misleading to call this a Holocaust memoir. Roma Ligocka does write about the Holocaust, but she was a very young child during that time and her vague, fragmentary memories of it take up only a few chapters of the book. The rest of the book is about her growing up and her adulthood as an artist. I didn't find the book all that interesting, and I thought Roma liked to promote herself a lot, talking about how beautiful she was, etc. Interesting detail: Roma's cousin is the famous film director Roman Polanski, and he's one of the major characters in the early part of the book.

[RedSaab · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got a dose of survivor's guilt reading this heart-rending memoir. It divides naturally into two halves, the latter surprisingly just as distressing as the first The first half tells of Ligocka's oft-times miraculous survival as a Jewish child in Poland as the Nazi occupation and the Holocaust gather pace. The second half depicts her valiant but vain attempts to process the deeply traumatic impact of it all as her adult life unfolds. Despite achieving a superficial measure of professional success, her talents cannot prevent her personal life repeatedly stalling or unravelling in slow motion.

If you approach this book expecting a conventional story of hard won triumph over adversity you will be thwarted. And, to those reviewers who find Ligocka's memoir 'whiny' or 'narcissistic', I would merely say that surviving existential trauma does not necessarily endow you with glowing or heroic personal attributes. But it's the cracks that let the light in. I just hope that by penning this haunting personal tragedy the author found a measure of recovery and peace.

[Kate Hamlet · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really felt that this could have been over halfway through the book. The author seems to be craving attention and is awfully spoiled as you'll find in the second half of the book. I found her to be whiny about the people and events in her life (not the Holocaust part....the rest of her life). The part about her going through the Holocaust was really good. After that though it seemed like she didn't want to wrap it up and by the end of her book I didn't care for her much. She even complained that she wasn't given the time of day after the premiere of Schindler's List when she claimed to be the girl in the red coat. Honestly, why would it necessarily be her? So she had a red coat too.....? I'm not sure I'd give that claim the time of day either. Her story about surviving the Holocaust is powerful and intense. I just think she could have ended it with that.

[Aisling Doonan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot rate this book highly enough, to say it is moving is an understatement of epic proportions. It is a chilling and heartbreaking account of a child, whose voice I think will haunt me for ever. I spent the last few pages not wanting it to end and then having a complete breakdown in the bathroom when it was finished. So beautifully and simply written, it will be one I always remember.

[M.S. Shoshanna Selo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Girl in the Red Coat is a touching and heartbreaking autobiography about the life of a Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor. Roma Ligocka was a young child when her and her family were forced to move into the Krakow Ghetto. Luckily, Roma and her mother were able to escape the Ghetto and were taken in by a non-Jewish family who hid them and passed them off as "cousins".

Roma poignantly describes the trauma of life in the Ghetto and the constant fear of her and her mother being caught by the Germans and making even the slightest mistake that could cost them their lives. Roma is forced to grow up at a young age and cannot have a normal childhood. Even simple things that most children take for granted such as playing outside and being with other children are forbidden to Roma.

Although Roma and her mother survive the war and are reunited with her father and other family members including Roman Polanski, the trauma hangs over their heads and their lives will never be normal. Roma not only bears her own trauma but the trauma of the family and friends who survived the concentration camps and subject the children to the horrendous details.

Roma doesn't get to catch up on the childhood that she missed as her father tragically dies two years after the war and communism takes hold over Poland, restricting people's lives and subjecting them to poverty and lack of freedom.

For those who say that this isn't a Holocaust memoir, they are wrong. You don't have to be a survivor of a concentration camp to be a Holocaust survivor and tell your story. Those who were hidden during the war have just as much right to tell their story and carry their own trauma.

Roma's account was extremely moving and tragic. The tragedy continues to impact her life as is the case for all Holocaust survivors. My grandparents were both Holocaust survivors who fled from Germany. I know that my grandmother's trauma impacted her until the day that she died.

The only problem I had with this book is that Roma dwells more on her life after leaving Poland during the communist era, living in West Germany, her marriages and social life. I felt like it took the focus away from her early experiences of the Holocaust and life in communist Poland and felt a bit irrelevant. I didn't really feel as connected to Roma in the latter part of the book. Perhaps the book wasn't marketed properly as I expected that it would just be about Roma's childhood, but it ended up being a memoir including a large portion of her adult life.

All in all this was a very evocative and moving book. Through such dark and harrowing times, Roma interweaves colour and child-like wonder and hope into her very traumatic story. I would definitely recommend this.

Grade: A

[Allyson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an incredibly moving read, but I had two objections. I thought she actually was the one in the red coat- it was a metaphor only, probably something a lot of reviewers unwittingly passed on and I distrusted a lot of her early memories. Not so much the memories, just the pure dialogue involved. Why can writers not simply provide a general impression of early recollections, rather than entire dialogue there is no possibility of being truthful? This was my big complaint against The Glass Castle and I felt the same way reading her early memories, actually the dialogue surrounding her early memories. I completely believe she would remember full scenarios in toto but not the conversations as explicitly written. I would have preferred something different and found I had to read beyond and was able to accept her storytelling for what it was.
Very powerful and moving and also laudable she did not trade on her relationship to Roman Polanski to sell this book.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book quite a bit. It’s awful that the author never had a childhood and I can see how this would affect a person for the rest of their life. Being scared, hungry, thirsty, etc 24/7 has got to play havoc on a persons perception of life and the people around them. I’ve seen Schindlers List and I find it fascinating that she is that little girl in the red coat. I remember being haunted by that clip for quite a long time after seeing the movie. And, as always, when watching or reading anything about the nazis, I’m appalled at the atrocities they committed and at the seeming ease with which they got every day people to go along with them. Maybe Americans need to look at the parallels this country is facing in 2024.

[Bettina Röckel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ich habe dieses Buch gelesen weil es außerhalb meiner Komfortzone liegt und mich die Geschichte rund um das jüdische Mädchen das zur Zeit des Nationalsozialismus im Ghetto von Krakau leben muss. Auch wenn es eine Biografie ist lies es sich flüssig lesen. Jedoch war ich überrascht dass das Buch nicht nur in dem Ghetto spielt sondern auch die Nachkriegszeit und die Auswirkungen nach dem Leben im Ghetto geschildert werden. Roma hat durch ihre Erfahrungen die sie nie richtig verarbeitet hat auch ein paar psychische Probleme die sich während ihrem ganzen Leben immer wieder zeigen. Jedoch hat mir der Teil nach dem Krieg irgendwann nicht mehr so richtig gefallen und war auch nicht mehr ganz so spannend zu lesen. Außerdem hatte ich nicht damit gerechnet, dass das Buch das Leben von Roma bis sie ungefähr 40 Jahre alt ist schildert. Deshalb waren meine Erwartungen an das Buch etwas andere. Es war trotzdem gut zu lesen. Deshalb bekommt es 3,5 Sterne von mir.

[Marjolein · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. The beginning gives a great view on the Holocaust through the eyes of a little child (and because she is so small, it gets really uncomfortable, because she doesn't understand everything we do understand). The rest of the book is a great tale of how what happened in her early years influences her and her choices and further life. Roma is not always the smartest or most sympathetic character, but it is all very logical and can be explained as a consequence of what she has lived through.

[Melanie Glass · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whilst wandering round a bookshop in the Jewish Quarter of Krakow I spotted this book and added it to my reading list. Having visited Auschwitz and explored quite a bit of the Jewish Quarter provided context to reading this book on my return. Following the story of the author from her childhood in Krakow, through the war and beyond was really interesting - hearing the story from a child's perspective really added to the story and provided a different understanding of what was going on and how it impacted children.
Well worth a read.

[Eugenea Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first, I was a bit apprehensive about tackling this Holocaust memoir—these books can be incredibly painful. However, I am so glad that I did. It is almost as if this author takes her reader by the hand and pulls that reader along into a gradually darkening world. Roma’s narrative covers her life from the age of 5 (with her childhood memories of the Ghetto and the detention camps) to her forties (at Spielberg’s premiere of his film “Schindler’s List” to which she was invited). A powerful testimony against the evils of fascism that resonates today more than ever!

[Tiffeny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an impressive memoir and so unique that it was inspired by the author catching a glimpse of herself being portrayed as a child (and with the only splash of color) in “Schindler’s List”. I love how the memoir was not only about life during WWII, but also right after through her life into the 1990s (right before publication). A great reminder about how we treat each other and on mental health, too.

[Sandra de koning-vd pol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dit boek heeft me enorm geraakt en ik weet zeker dat ik nog dagen zal blijven denken aan dat meisje in de rode jas en de vrouw die uiteindelijk niet anders kan, dan op zoek gaan naar zichzelf. Draai je om. Denk eraan. Herinner je. Vertel... Zo mooi!

[Marko · Rating 5 out of 5]

„Dziewczynka w czerwonym płaszczyku” Romy Ligockiej wzrusza, porusza, ściska za serce i rozwala system. Zwłaszcza bardzo realistycznie relacjonuje okres II wojenny w Krakowie. Niesamowita biografia, która dotyka do żywego.

[Steffi]

No rating because I usually don't rate non-fiction (especially not biographies)

Really liked seeing Romas perspective, her journey and the long-lasting trauma she sustained from her traumatic childhood.
I've read quite a few non-fictions from jewish people during the Second World War, but I feel like this really gave me something I had not read before. I don't think I've read about that time from someone who was that young when it happened, nor from someone who actually managed to hide out throughout the entire war. And I also liked how it didn't just stop with the end of the war, but also shows you how Roma was haunted by her past throughout her entire life.

[Mirjam de Graaf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ik was best wel verrast dat in veel reviews staat dat dit ‘geen holocaust memoire’ is. Kennelijk heb je alleen recht op die vermelding als je in een kamp zat en daar het hele boek over laat gaan, anders is men teleurgesteld? Ik vond het boek juist erg mooi weergeven hoe het in je hele leven lang doorwerkt als je in een vijandige oorlogsomgeving opgroeit en dus als klein meisje geen andere werkelijkheid kent. Nee, Roma is niet supersympathiek, maar als je met aandacht leest snap je ook precies waarom.

[Klara Lemvig-Allan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t realise it was a memoir until halfway through because it reads so much like a novel. I also expected more of it to be during the actual holocaust, but majority was actually post-war stuff - still interesting and a bit different. I’m not normally a fan of day-to-day accounts though as it can be quite mundane, but I guess it reflects real life and there were still twists and turns that I couldn’t predict.
I got bored and left it for like a year but I’m glad I came back and persisted because it was much more relatable and exciting at the end. (Like many books unfortunately xo)

[julia]

Ze względu na to, że jest to opowieść autobiograficzna, nie będę jej oceniać. Mimo wszystko była ona okrutna, wyciskająca łzy, ale też niewinna, bo była z perspektywy dziecka. Najbardziej łamiące serce momenty, to byłe te tuż po wojnie, kiedy ludzie, niby bezpieczni, ale straumatyzowani, wciąż nie mogli odnaleźć siebie (odnosi się to również do dzieci, co było w tym wszystkim najgorsze). Mam wrażenie, że dotknęła mnie nawet bardziej, niż ,,Chłopiec w pasiastej piżamie".

[Bookwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pamiętam z tej książki jedno,. historię chłopczyka, który znów chciał byc dziewczynka.

[Améline Hoefman]

Ik heb maar de helft gelezen! Was enkel geïnteresseerd in de oorlog en de naoorlogse praat🫣