What the Night Sings Summary
Vesper Stamper

What the Night Sings Overview

Vesper Stamper’s illustrated graphic novel for young adults tells the story of Gerta Rausch, a teenage Holocaust survivor. Before the war, Gerta was training to be an opera singer and did not even know she was Jewish; now she is haunted by memories of life in the concentration camps, broken in body and spirit, and has lost her voice. The majority of the novel takes place on the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp after the British liberation, and depicts a world ravaged by the horrors of war and violence, where the young have been left orphaned and stripped of their past selves. As she gradually finds healing, she begins to rebuild her life and identity and, in the process, finds love, faith, and a new place to call home.