|
|
Anita Lobel was born in Kraców,
Poland just before World War II. In the proper Jewish household in which
she lived, there was a nanny for the children. It was this strong-willed
Catholic peasant who saved the lives of Anita and her brother during the
war passing them off as her own children.
They spent five years on the run from one town to another until the Nazis discovered them on Christmas Day hiding out in a convent. Anita and her brother moved through Monelupi Prison, Plaszów, and Auschwitz, ending up in Ravensbrück concentration camp. Somehow, they survived until liberation and were brought to Sweden. Eventually, Anita’s parents were located and they were reunited in Stockholm. There, Anita went to high school and began taking art lessons. When the family emigrated to New York, Anita won a scholarship to Pratt Institute where she met and married Arnold Lobel. Anita’s interests in theater and music and foreign languages have served her well in her work both as an author and an illustrator. She has been an actress and a singer. "It is the ‘drama’ in a picture-book that interests me most," she has said. "I stage the story the way a director might work on a theater piece." |
