Red Parrot Press ~ California
(Barbara Milman)

Barbara Milman: "Zoe's Journal is an illustrated diary of a young New York City artist. It follows Zoe's adventures as she tries to break into the gallery scene, while supporting herself by making fake illuminated manuscripts. She struggles with her political ideals, with fashionable art concepts, and with various boyfriends over the course of a year."

The journal is available for each month of the year. February and April are listed. However, he other months are available as well.

Zoë's Journal: February
By Barbara Milman
El Cerrito, California: 2006. Edition of 5.

5.875 x 7.75"; 28 pages. Digital printing. Accordion fold with end pages pasted to boards. Cream paper covered boards.

Milman kept a fictional journal for a year. She tried to make an entry every day chronicling the activities of fictional Zoë. This version of the journal is digitally printed from the original hand-drawn drawings and hand-written text. Twelve books (one a month) available, each in an edition of 5.

"February 11: I made a valentine for Sasha's party. It symbolizes hope and rebirth through love after the destruction of human life by a nuclear holocaust and celebrates the continuity of all forms of life and the presence of signs of the past in the future. ...

"February 19: ... After dinner I read the want ads in the Times. It was very discouraging. There is hardly anything I am qualified for."
$100

Zoë's Journal: April
By Barbara Milman
El Cerrito, California: Red Parrot Press, 2006. Edition of 5.

5.875 x 7.75"; 28 pages. Digital printing. Accordion fold with end pages pasted to boards. Hand made paper covered boards.

Milman kept a fictional journal for a year. She tried to make an entry every day chronicling the activities of fictional Zoë. This version of the journal is digitally printed from the original hand-drawn drawings and hand-written text. Twelve books (one a month) available, each in an edition of 5.

"April 6: George complimented me on my hairstyle. I had been a little worried, but I guess it will be OK. I still haven't shown anyone my new outfit. ...

"My mother was not as enthusiastic as George about my hair. She also asked how it got so lon and I told her that only the top is real. The bottom section can be removed. She asked if I could use the bottom to cover the shaved part. But she did say she liked the color better than the blue that I had before."
$100

Accident
By Barbara Milman
El Cerrito, California: Red Parrot Press, 2008. Edition of 6.

12 x 9" closed; 36 x 23" open. When open, it is cross-shaped, a horizontal and vertical foldbook with a common page. Linocuts. Tie closure.

Milman's second book about the oil spill in the San Francisco Bay on November 9, 2007. On that day the container ship Cosco Busan rammed the Bay Bridge and spilled 58,000 gallons of fuel. With a blot of red paper over the black-and-white linocuts, there is no doubt where Milman's sympathies lie – certainly not with the oil companies.
$350,

Oil Spill
By Barbara Milman
El Cerrito, California: Red Parrot Press, 2008. Edition of 15.

8 x 6" closed, 144 x 6" extended; 18 pages. Accordion fold book. Digital images on Moab Entrada Natural rag paper. Housed in lightweight paper slipcase.

Milman is interested the effects on the environment through accident or carelessness such as the oil spill in the San Francisco Bay on November 9, 2007. On that day the container ship Cosco Busan rammed the Bay Bridge and spilled 58,000 gallons of fuel. Nine short declarative sentences paired with nine stylistic two-page spreads, employing an expressive combination of black-and-white and color, chronicles the ecological effects of that event. Damning by restraint, the book emits a telltale odor of oil, lest we miss the point.
$160

The Ocean's Edge
By Barbara Milman
El Cerrito, California: Red Parrot Press, 2007. Edition of 6.

6 x 8" closed; 18 x 24" fully opened; 10 pages. A cross structure with one tall sheet folded in thirds (top and bottom folded inward) and two 4-page signatures attached to the sides of the middle page formed by the fold. Thus, allowing multiple permutations in viewing order and contextual reference. Horizontal pages (of the cross) contain photographs; vertical pages contain Milman's illustrations. Inner page is a linocut (8 x 18") printed over digital image.

Another of Milman's global warming books. Photos of California oceans and beaches juxtaposed with power lines and automobiles.
$120

The Rising Sea
By Barbara Milman
El Cerrito, California: Red Parrot Press, 2007. Edition of 8.

8.75 x 6.5"; 12 pages. Accordion structure. Digital printing with watercolor added to extend the edges of the photo images onto white areas next to them.

Barbara Milman: "I made several unique books in Hawaii using photos printed on photo paper and with similar designs on folded sheets of watercolor paper. The background text is from news articles and headlines about global warming - but chopped up so that it is hard to make out the details."
$98 (Last Two copies)

The Holocaust Series:

Five books in a series recounting interviews with Holocaust survivors. The artist interviewed five Holocaust survivors and did 12 prints for each, telling their stories. All five are very different: four are Jews, one a young Dutch woman who worked for the Dutch underground.

Five stories, each in an edition of 25.

8.5 x 13.5”. Accordion structure. Text and images in linocut. Bound in black covered boards.

Barbara Milman: "In 1994 I decided to interview Holocaust survivors and create a series of prints based on their stories. I then approached the San Francisco Holocaust Oral History Project, which graciously put me in touch with several survivors. Two of these individuals, Rita Kuhn (Berlin) and Gloria Lyon (Auschwitz), were the first of my interviewees. Subsequently, other subjects were suggested by friends and acquaintances, and I interviewed three more individuals: Peter Schrag (Escape), Alexander Groth (Warsaw), and Hielke Sheneman (Holland)....

"It is my hope that telling these stories today, one-half a century after they happened, will make it less likely that similar stories will have to be told in the future.".

Auschwitz
Interview of Gloria Lyon

A Hungarian child survives the largest death camp

Barbara Milman: "Upon arrival at Auschwitz, Jews were divided into two groups. The elderly and infirm were sent directly to the gas chambers. The young and healthy were sent to the forced labor section of the camp."

Gloria Lyon: "We were in Auschwitz. Heads shaved, arms tattooed, we were sent to barracks. Next morning my mother, my sister and I were set to work sorting and packing clothing, shoes, glasses for shipment to Germany. Night and day thick black smoke filled the camp with an awful stench. After a few days I completely lost all my sense of smell."
$600

Berlin
Interview with Rita Kuhn

A child's view of pre-war persecution in Germany

Barbara Milman: "Rita Kuhn was born of a Jewish father and a mother two who had converted to Judaism after marriage. Rita and her brother were raised as Jews. In 1933, the first legal definition of a Jew (non-Aryan) was enacted: any person with one Jewish parent or one Jewish grandparent was so classified. This definition was refined in 1935, after passage of the Nuremberg Laws, to distinguish between "full Jews" (persons who had at least three grandparents who were "full Jews by race") and Mischlings (offspring of mixed marriages, who had one full Jewish parent and one Aryan parent). However, a Mischling was treated as a full Jew if, like Rita, the person was a member of the Jewish religious community when the law was enacted in 1935 or if certain other criteria applied....

"Since Jews were defined by race, a non-Jew like Rita's mother, who had married a Jew and converted to Judaism, was still considered Aryan and as such not subject to deportation with her family. The demonstration by Christian German wives of Jewish men on Rosenstrasse in March 1943 was one of the few incidents of public resistance to anti-Jewish actions by German citizens. In the face of this resistance, the Nazis backed down and released hundreds of Jewish husbands and children. Rita and her family were among those released, and they were not arrested again for the duration of the war."
$600

Escape
Interview with Peter Schrag

Fleeing Germany

Barbara Milman: "Approximately 525,000 Jews lived in Germany when Hitler became that country's Chancellor in 1933. As soon as the Nazis assumed power, anti-Semitic policies were established, and Jews were increasingly barred from schools, businesses, and professions. Jewish businesses were boycotted and Jews were subjected to mistreatment and arbitrary arrest....

"With the implementation of the Nuremberg Laws, Jews with means began to leave their homeland. Peter Schrag and his family were among those Jews who fled Germany in 1935. By 1939, the year in which the war began, over 280,000 German Jews had managed to escape or emigrate to neighboring countries such as Luxembourg, which borders Germany on the west, and Belgium, which borders on Luxembourg....

"Peter Schrag and his family were among those Jews who escaped first to Vichy France, and then to Spain and to Portugal. From Lisbon, the Schrag family came to the United States, arriving in New York City In June 1941."

Escape is the remembrance of Peter Schrag as his family evaded capture by German patrols as the traveled across Europe. They slept in haylofts, hid in cellars, jumped off trains, and walked though dark fields to wall through a hole in a fence towards freedom.

Peter Schrag:" After days of bombs and gunfire, there was a sudden silence. We did not know who had won. Then the cellar door was opened by soldiers yelling, 'Alle Raus.'"
$600

Holland
Interview with Hielke Sheneman

Working in the Dutch resistance

Barbara Milman: "At the time of the German invasion there were 140,000 Jews in Holland, and by the summer of 1943 the Germans estimated that there were approximately 20,000 Dutch Jews in hiding. About 18,000 of the hidden Jews survived the war, including at least two of the three Jews hidden by Hielke Sheneman and her family. Holland had more 'righteous gentiles' than any other European country. By 1990 over 3,200 Dutch citizens had been honored by the State of Israel for helping Jews escape the Holocaust, often by hiding them from the Nazis."

Hielke Sheneman moved to Amsterdam and joined the underground. She delivered the underground newspaper, scavenged for food, and hid Jews.

Sheneman: "When the Germans killed someone we put flowers on the sidewalk where they died. Toward the end of the war the killings increased so much that the sidewalks were always full of flowers."
$600

Warsaw
Interview of Alexander Groth

Surviving the ghetto

Barbara Milman: "Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. However, Warsaw, the country's capital, did not fall until September 27, 1939 and German troops waited for several more days before entering the city. At first, Jews such as Alexander Groth and his family continued to live in their prewar homes. They were still there n the spring of 1940 for the celebration of Passover, but it was not long before Polish Jews were segregated from the rest of the population.

"The first Polish ghetto was established in Lodz on May 1, 1940 and at its peak had a population of 445,000. This meant that 30% of the city's total population, plus any Jews transported from other cities, was confined to 2.4% of the city's total area. By the middle of 1941, nearly 5,000 Jews a month were dying of illness and starvation."

The Groth family was forced to move the ghetto in 1940. They were more fortunate than most because they had money, food and warm clothing as well as their own apartment. But mass deportations began as well as executions of those considered not fit for work or transport. Groth's blind grandmother was shot - as well as her husband who refused to leave her side. It was then that Alexander Groth understood that "it would take a miracle for us to survive."
$600