‘When I Grow Up’: New Yorker cartoonist revives lost stories of Jewish teenagers

A chance discovery in a Lithuanian church cellar in 2017 led to the unearthing of a collection of lost stories of Jewish teenagers depicting their lives in the 1930s. Ken Krimstein, a cartoonist for The New Yorker, was so moved by the autobiographical accounts that he travelled to Vilnius to read them in person. He wanted to revive the stories of the teens’ hopes and dreams, as well as their fears of the Nazi regime just before the outbreak of World War II. His graphic novel, “When I Grow Up”, has just been published in French as “Vivre”. Krimstein spoke to FRANCE 24’s Gavin Lee in Perspective.