Romek Marber (1925-2020): The Man who Vowed Never to Return

Romek Marber is probably most famous for the design of over seventy book covers for the Penguin Crime series in the 1960s as well as for the development of the Marber grid which made the layout of Penguin cover pages consistent across titles.

However, even most people who knew him had little idea of his back story. This was to change in 2010 with the publication of his memoirs of pre-WWII life growing up in a small town in Poland and his survival as a Jew under Nazi occupation. The title of his memoirs is No Return: Journeys in the Holocaust. World War II broke out when Romek was thirteen. By the end of the war he had survived life in the Bochnia ghetto, experienced the disappearance of his twin sister, mother and grandparents (to be murdered in Belzec), slave labour in concentration camps and being left for dead with typhus in a pigsty in Bavaria. After liberation Romek spent a year as a Displaced Person in Italy until he was finally able to join his surviving brother and father in the UK. In due course he would establish himself as one of Britain’s most talented and distinctive graphic designers.

Romek’s niece, Elaine Sinclair (born Marber), will provide background on Romek’s family and life in Poland and his experiences during WWII. Romek wrote his memoirs, initially for the family, as a result of her persuasion. She is an occupational psychologist.

Her lifelong friend Naomi Games, who also knew Romek well, will describe Romek’s career and present some of his work. Naomi is the daughter of designer Abram Games. She has worked for many adult and children’s publishers and has written sixteen books, including six about her father, as well as producing a film on him and running his archive.

To book, click here.