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Walker announces 'powerful' picture book from Rosen
Walker has announced a picture book from Michael Rosen based on the true story of an escape by members of the French resistance from a rail convoy bound for Auschwitz
One Day was originally a poem written for Holocaust Memorial Day. It will be illustrated by Benjamin Phillips. World rights in all languages were acquired by Jane Winterbotham, editor-at-large, from Charles Walker at United Agents and illustrations contracted directly with the illustrator Benjamin Phillips. The book will publish in January 2025 to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day and lead into Jewish Book Week. Candlewick will be co-publishing in the US.
Walker said Rosen came across the story of Eugène Handschuh while researching what happened to his father’s great uncle and aunt during the Second World War. As a train convoy deported Jews from a prison camp in Paris to Auschwitz, Eugène managed to escape, while sadly Rosen’s aunt and uncle did not. They never returned, along with over a thousand other people on the train.
Rosen said: “I’ve pored over this story for many years, thinking about the horror of the round-ups, the transit camp at Drancy outside Paris and the deportation trains – convoys of cattle trucks heading out of France to Auschwitz. In the midst of this, I came across this story of bravery, resistance, compassion and hope and felt that it needed a wider audience. I’m hugely grateful to Benjamin and Walker Books for making this a reality.”
Phillips added: “The atrocities of World War Two are so often simplified down into key facts and statistics. First-hand accounts of what people went through under the occupation of the Nazis can communicate so much more and this is why Eugéne’s story is so precious and important. I know so little about what my own Jewish family experienced during this time and once people are gone their stories disappear with them. I feel honoured to have been asked to illustrate this book and am so grateful to Michael and Walker Books for trusting me to do so.”
Winterbotham also commented: “Only Michael Rosen could write a picture book about the fear and horror of Paris under Nazi occupation and the Holocaust with such sensitivity and humanity. This is an incredibly powerful book that will help keep alive the memory of those darkest of times with the next generation to ensure they are not forgotten. We are so proud to publish it.”
