A Story About the Red Race Car – Overview

Summary

The Graphic novel A Story About the Red Race Car is a dramatised story about the Frelih family from pre-war Belgrade, based on true events, real people, historical documentation and testimonies.

Aleksandar Frelih is an eleven-year old Jewish boy from Belgrade. As we follow Aleksandar and his family through twelve illustrated scenes, we will find out more about their life, the Jewish culture and tradition, and about the pre-war Belgrade and Serbia in general. When the war brought anti-Jewish measures, repression, and death, the Frelih family shared the same destiny as thousands of other Jews from Belgrade.

Above all A Story about the Red Race Car is a human story about friendship in the times of suffering told from the perspective of a young Jewish boy.

English and Serbian versions

The novel is written in Serbian and translated into English. Some footnotes/explanations in the English version are added referring to English reading audiences which are not familiar with Serbian history and culture. Similarly, in the Serbian version of the text there are some explanations that were not included in the English version, as it didn’t seemed necessary.

In addition, in the Serbian version there is a large section with investigative tasks for students (consisting of more than 150 various tasks all together). This includes tasks related to the research of the historical newspapers and other documents available online on the websites of the National Library of Serbia, the University Library of Belgrade and the Historical Archives of Belgrade. All these materials are available only in Serbian language.