Maurice and His Dictionary: A True Story

Many adults trace their life’s work or activity back to childhood influences. Traumatizing injustices often intensify the desire to overcome obstacles and succeed.

So it was with Cary Fagan’s late father, Maurice, who survived Hitler’s genocide of European Jews as an adolescent through the timely, critical decisions of his own parents and the vagaries of luck.

Fagan has recorded Maurice’s story of survival in a handsome graphic picture book, illustrated thoughtfully and skillfully by Enzo Lord Mariano. As with many stories told about escaping certain death, survivors came away with a sense of determination and the drive to battle whatever barriers they encountered because they had already been through far worse.

Even as a child, Maurice Fajgenbaum (he changed his last name to Fagan in Canada) wanted to be a lawyer. He, his parents and brother and sister fled their home in Brussels, Belgium, in 1940 when Hitler’s army invaded. Fagan shows the children’s bewilderment as they ponder the sudden change. Maurice’s brother is most concerned about taking his soccer ball, his sister Adele quips that she always wanted to see Paris, “but not like this”, even as bullets fly around them and the train lurches from the station. Then the realization of what is happening sets in. Mariano shows the fear, shock and anger on people’s faces; the Nazis are cold-looking, steel-grey and lacking humanity.

Living in France in poverty, not enrolled in school, Maurice wonders how he can accomplish his dream. But, just as the adults in hiding or concentration camps recognized that children needed to have a dream by continuing their studies, Maurice’s parents find a way for him.

Still they must escape again, through Spain, where Maurice witnesses the injustices meted out by Francisco Franco’s fascist regime, arriving in Portugal, where they finally obtain passage on a boat to Jamaica. The muted colours of the Atlantic Ocean remind the reader of the threat below; the twisted expressions on the children’s show how seasick the voyage rendered them.

Such was the level of anti-Semitism within European society in general, that the victims of the greatest crime in history were incarcerated in Gibraltar Camp by the British colonizers for two years. Despite strict rules against working, the father manages to earn money for the family. Fagan and Mariano show that people still try to find humour no matter their predicament; Maurice’s father’s quest for a new pair of pants has a comedic conclusion. Maurice also pursues education, learning English through a second-hand dictionary he buys in a used book store, a key to his future success.

His diligence pays off with the offer of a university education in Toronto - and the rest is history. Maurice worked and studied hard. The rest of his family immigrated to Canada after the war, and he graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1951.

Fagan adds a tender and sensitively designed postscript summarizing his own family’s story within the context of what happened to his other relatives, all of whom perished in Europe. Family pictures and a snapshot of the ship they travelled on are included, as well as a picture of Maurice’s dictionary, a book which Fagan still treasures.

Fagan’s writing is spare, but he has created dialogue that captures the essence of the characters’ thoughts and experiences. Mariano’s use of muted browns and greys is effective, transmitting a sense of the dark times, the shadows in which people hid. His drawings of people’s mouths are particularly notable - expressive and interesting to look at. Readers will sense his strong grasp of the content.

If there is any criticism, the title of the book should be “Triumph! A True Story” because there are many triumphs here. Survival stories have been told many times, and they should be told again and again with the lesson deliberately and loudly taught that we who live securely today should imagine ourselves in the place of those survivors as well as current refugees. About 70 million people in the world have been displaced by wars, persecution and other injustices. Yet many governments display callous indifference to their plight, an indifference to the situation they escaped and a lack of interest in solving the political problems that prompted whole populations to uproot themselves

The racism and cruelty that is being shown throughout Europe, North America and Australia, among other places to those fleeing from wars, persecution and other injustices is unconscionable. People packed into dinghies, risking death by drowning, crossing desserts under the vicious heat of the sun - all to live in peace and give their children a future - are being turned back or abused by nativists and racists as if they had committed a crime. As with the genocide perpetrated by Hitler, these are crimes against humanity.

Maurice and His Dictionary can be used at any level, both for the content and for the art. An important story, well told and depicted.