It is always enlightening to learn something about a person which changes ones entire perspective about who that individual truly was.
My perception of the legendary mime, Marcel Marceau, was that of a talented performer who’d enjoyed a long career of entertaining audiences around the world. And although this was correct, he was so much more. Born Marcel Mangel, a Jew, in Strasbourg, France, he joined the French underground during WW II and was instrumental in rescuing hundreds of Jewish children by leading them out of France over the high Alps to the safety of Switzerland. He also altered the identity cards of children so they would appear too young to be sent to the labor camps and certain death.
Learn more about this actor “without words” in the book Monsieur Marceau by Leda Schubert, illustrated by Gerard Dubois or Marcel Marceau: Master of Mime by Gloria Spielman, illustrated by Manon Gauthier. Both books are located in the children’s room.
Charlene Wagner, Children’s Librarian