"I FOUND HIM, I FOUND HIM, he's alive, the boy from The Secret Seder!" These are the words that celebrated children's author Doreen Rappaport ran screaming to her husband after receiving an email from Oak Lane Day School music teacher Marlis Kraft-Zemel. This email informed her that the narrator and central character of her book, The Secret Seder, was veteran Oak Lane art teacher of almost fifty years, master potter and Holocaust survivor Armand Mednick. Following this astonishing initial contact, emails flew back and forth and ultimately resulted in an extraordinary evening at Oak Lane, when Mrs. Rappaport and Mr. Mednick met for the first time and told their respective stories relating to this book.
Armand Mednick, beloved art teacher at Oak Lane, has been touching the lives of children at this school in countless ways for 48 years, including telling his students in 1st through 6th grades his stories each year, to help put his art curriculum into a historical perspective. He tempers these stories to the children's developmental levels and sensibilities. The impact and the lasting memories created are an important and treasured element in an Oak Lane education.
Mr. Mednick's story is a long and riveting one of hardship, heartache, incredible determination, courage and survival. He was born Abraham Mednicki in Brussels in 1933, was smuggled out of Belgium as a young and very sick child, and with his family, hid from the Nazis in France. His name was changed to Armand Mednick and the family lived as Catholics. Armand's grandparents refused to leave Belgium, and as Jews died in the concentration camps. When he was eight, his father Bernard Mednicki, who had been drafted as a soldier in the resistance, heard about a secret Passover seder in the mountains. Showing incredible courage and in defiance of the Nazis, Bernard took his young son to the seder. For three years, Armand and his family lived among the Nazis, witnessing endless atrocities, but hiding and holding tightly to their Jewish heritage and beliefs.
Award winning author Doreen Rappaport writes about issues and individuals involved with social justice. She is also Jewish and grew up in a mixed Jewish family in show business. However, by her own admission she knew little about the Jewish resistance or the Holocaust until she began researching the topic. What she discovered "puzzled, challenged and amazed" her, and led to more exploring. One of the books she read was Bernard Mednicki's memoirs, Never Be Afraid: A Jew in the Maquis, which told the story of a Belgian Jew who was hiding out in a French village and took his son to a seder in the mountains. Mrs. Rappaport read many little known stories about Jews celebrating Passover and Hanakkuh in defiance of the Nazis, and decided to frame a story around this theme. Unable to locate Bernard Mednicki, she realized she would have to fictionalize the story as she did not have enough information to do otherwise. Thus was born The Secret Seder, told by the central character Jacques, who in real life is Armand Mednick.
Last summer Mr. Mednick's sister learned of the existence of a book based on their father's memoirs. Mr. Mednick acquired a copy and on the second night of Passover last year took it to colleague Marlis Kraft-Zemel. This led to the email to Mrs. Rappaport informing her of Armand Mednick's existence. Out of this initial contact developed the evening presentation at Oak Lane Day School, where approximately 150 faculty, Board members, parents, students, alumni and other invited guests gathered to hear these two remarkable individuals tell their respective stories and how they ended up sitting together on the same stage!
The Secret Seder is only one of the many books that Doreen Rappaport has written. Others include Abe's Honest Words, about Abraham Lincoln, Lady Liberty: A Biography, the Life of the Statue of Liberty, The School Is Not Whitey, a nonfiction book about civil rights, Freedom River about slavery, and Dirt on Their Skirts, about female baseball players. She also has several more books coming out soon, including Eleanor Quiet No More, about Eleanor Roosevelt. Many of Mrs. Rappaport's books have received awards and literary honors, including her book about Martin Luther King, Jr., Martin's Big Words, which has received The Caldecott Award (2002), The Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book (2002), Child Magazine Best Book Award (2001), The New York Times Book Review Award for Best Illustrated Children's Book (2001), and several others. It has also been chosen as the Signature Book for the 14th Annual Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service on January 19, 2009. The goal is to "encourage local students to read and discuss Martin's Big Words. The book presents a unifying message, which will allow students to reflect on Dr. King's 'Beloved Community.'"
Mrs. Rappaport's visit also coincided with Oak Lane's Parent Association's Celebrate Books Week, for which she was the guest author, meeting with and sharing her expertise with all the students in the school. In addition to the information she presented on writing a book, one of Mrs. Rappaport's key points was that everyone has stories to tell, and she encouraged the children to talk with their parents and grandparents, listen to their stories and write them down. Whether she is writing about Jewish resistance fighters, former slaves, civil rights workers or presidents in historical fiction or non-fiction stories, Doreen Rappaport is writing the stories that she deeply believes need to be told. One of these stories, The Secret Seder, miraculously found its way back to Oak Lane Day School, where it has such special meaning for this community, telling the story of our own cherished art teacher, Armand Mednick.
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