How can graphic novels help us to communicate and understand the past? How can survivors of violence and mass atrocities work in dialogue with graphic novel artists to interpret and record their experiences? How can we share these narratives in meaningful ways? These are some of the questions that will be discussed during the ‘Visualizing Survivor’s Voices’ panel hosted by the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies at SPUI25 in Amsterdam on June 18.
This event will bring together witnesses, artists, and researchers to reflect upon the ways in which personal narratives of mass violence are recorded and shared by visual narratives. It will feature a diverse group of speakers, including Dr. Charlotte Schallié and Dr. Andrea Webb, co-directers of the SCVN project, graphic artist Tobi Dahmen, survivor of the Syrian regime and the narrator of Dahmen’s forthcoming graphic novel Akram al-Saud, and NIOD historians Dr. Kees Ribbens and Dr. Uğur Ümit Üngör.
Drs. Franziska Zaugg and Sabine Rutar from the Yugoslav Wars Research Cluster will be chairing a panel ‘Images as bridges: Graphic novels as a means of visualizing historical experiences of violence’ on July 9, 2025. This session is a part of the 7th Swiss History Days Conference taking place at the University of Lucerne from July 8 to July 11.
The Swiss Historical Society, the professional association of historians in Switzerland, organizes the Swiss History Days every three years at different locations. This congress brings together hundreds of historians from Switzerland and abroad, and is one of the largest symposia of its kind in Europe. The Swiss History Days invite all disciplines into the dialogue and attract young academics as well as internationally renowned history teachers and researchers.
The theme for this year’s conference is (In)visibility. This focus is predicated upon the fact that visuality is omnipresent in the 21st century. Its aesthetic, technical, and social conditions, and their impacts, require a fresh engagement with its historiographical classification and perspective. The panel proposed and chaired by Dr. Zaugg and Dr. Rutar aims to reflect upon the visualizing power and impact of graphic novels within historical context. Here is the description of the session:
“To this day, historical scholarship is primarily oriented towards written texts, both in terms of its sources and the research literature. With regard to epistemic and experienced violence, the question arises as to how this can be adequately discussed with students and colleagues. For several years now, graphic novels (also called “comics”) have offered a new approach. Art Spiegelman’s “Maus,” which is now considered an icon of this genre, marked the beginning of making history visible through images. Since then, the possible approaches to the history of violence through graphic novels have intensified. Examples include the works of Joe Sacco on besieged Sarajevo in the 1990s and Jacques Tardi on the First World War.
Our panel aims to address this issue by bringing historians and artists into discussion about how violence can be methodically and convincingly visualized in graphic novels. The following questions will be central: How do artists, contemporary witnesses, and historians work together? How does the spoken word—the narrated memory, but also the invisible aspect of epistemic violence—become a narrative in images and words? How does historical expertise enter this story? How does the artist succeed in narrating biographical information in such a way that the memory can be made visible and coherently embedded in a larger historical context? What role do archival sources, both written and, in particular, visual (photos, films), play in the creation of a science-based, artistically compelling graphic novel?”
The panel touches on the research fields of biographical narrative, the history of war and violence, memory studies, visual history, trauma research, and political and historical education.
We also look forward to their insights and experience working with graphic artists and survivors with the Yugoslav Wars Research Cluster.
For further information about the conference program, please click here.
For a more detailed description of the three presentations on this panel, please click here.
‘Images as bridges: Graphic novels as a means of visualizing historical experiences of violence’ July 9, 2025 3:45 – 5:15 p.m. CEST Seminarraum 3B48 University of Lucerne Event link: https://geschichtstage.ch/frontend/index.php page_id=40244&v=List&do=0&day=5636&q=rutar
Starting on May 22, 2025, the Wiesbaden Kunsthaus will host the premiere of the ‘I will not be silent! Drawn Memories in Comics’ exhibition.
Guided tour of the exhibition ‘I will not remain silent! Drawn memory in comics’ with Jakob Hoffman, video by Patrick Bäuml and Kunsthaus Wiesbaden, May 23, 2025.
The exhibition, which runs from May 22 to June 13, showcases four internationally acclaimed, award-winning artists— Tobi Dahmen, Nora Krug, Birgit Weyhe and Hannah Brinkmann — who use graphic storytelling techniques to explore history. Following the success of ‘But I Live. Remembering the Holocaust’ exhibition hosted in 2023, the Kunsthaus continues to focus on its key theme of “Promoting Democracy through Memory Culture.” Curated by Jakob Hoffmann, this exhibition is presented on the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
From left to right: Tobi Dahmen, Hannah Brinkmann, Birgit Weyhe and Nora Krug. Photos courtesy of Jakob Hoffmann.
‘I will not be silent!’ centers on life stories that remind us that the past is part of our present, highlighting the importance of democracy and exploring ways of sharing these stories through art. The show features original drawings, sketches, research materials, and interviews. Through the displayed work by the four artists, it demonstrates different aesthetic approaches to visual storytelling and illuminates the creation process of graphic narratives.
The comic art on display at the ‘I will not be Silent!’ exhibition. Photos courtesy of the Wiesbaden Kunstahaus.
Three of the featured artists— Tobi Dahmen, Birgit Weyhe, and Nora Krug—are collaborating with the SCVN project’s Iraq & Syria and Holocaust Research Clusters respectively. While the displayed work by Birgit Weyhe and Nora Krug has been created outside the project, Tobi Dahmen’s featured art has been directly inspired by this collaboration. Visitors will have a chance to see parts of his latest graphic novel titled Al-Faẓia’ – The Horror: Surviving Assad’s Prisons, to be published by Carlsen Verlag in 2026, telling the story of Syrian refugee Akram al-Saud, who survived imprisonment and torture under the totalitarian Assad regime in Syria.
From left to right: Tobi demonstrating the size of Akram’s cell, Birgit Weyhe and Nora Krug examining Tobi’s panels, and Tobi and Akram in conversation. Photos courtesy of Jakob Hoffmann.
Pages from the graphic novel, ‘Al-Faẓia – The Horror: Surviving Assad’s Prisons’, featured at the exhibit. Images by Tobi Dahmen.
The exhibition opened on May 21, 2025, in the presence of Monique Behr, director of the Kunsthaus, and Dr. Susanne Völker, managing director of Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain. During the opening event, the featured artists and witnesses, Ernst Grube and Akram, engaged in a panel discussion, which was moderated by the exhibition curator, Jakob Hoffmann.
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Fund Frankfurt RheinMain, Democracy Lives in Wiesbaden, and the Heinrich Böll Foundation. An accompanying program was developed in cooperation with the Jewish Community of Wiesbaden and other partners, and features readings, lectures, films, inclusive tours, and workshops for school classes.
For more detailed information about the exhibition, please visit the Wiesbaden Kunsthaus website here.
The ‘Landscape in Comics’ exhibition opens on May 21 in Galleria 5 in Oulu, Finland. It will be the first public presentation of Anneli Furmark’s original art from her untitled graphic novel created in collaboration with a survivor of the Srebrenica Genocide within the frame of the Yugoslav Wars Research Cluster. The exhibition focuses on the presence and place of landscape in graphic narratives.
In comics, landscapes often play a secondary role by providing background to the main story. The ‘Landscapes in Comics’ exhibition challenges this convention by exploring the narrative potential of landscapes and their capacity to reveal hidden details and additional layers of meaning in graphic storytelling. In addition to landscape, the exhibition deals with themes such as time, temporality, perception, sensory perception, memory, scale, living conditions and ecosystems.
Furmark’s work is featured alongside artists Juliana Hyrri (Estonia) and Hanneriina Moisseinen (Finland). The exhibition hosted by Galleria 5 in Oulu, Finland is open from May 21 until June 16, 2025.
Thank you Kulturfonden för Sverige och Finland, Grafia and Sortavala – Säätiö for supporting this exhibition.
For more detailed information on Galleria 5 website, please click here.
On Sunday, May 11, 2025, the exhibition ‘But I Live. Remembering the Holocaust’ opens at the Bergen-Belsen Memorial.
The exhibition, curated by Jakob Hoffmann and Barbara Yelin, features the process of co-creation and original artwork by artists Barbara Yelin, Miriam Libicki, and Gilad Seliktar produced for the graphic novel But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust, edited by Dr. Charlotte Schallié and inspired by the narratives of Holocaust survivors Emmie Arbel, David Schaffer, and Nico and Rolf Kamp. Displaying original drawings, sketches, archival materials, and interviews with participants, the exhibition illuminates the process by which the book came into existence.
Pages from each of the graphic narratives in ‘But I Live’, from left to right: ‘A Kind of Resistance’ by Miriam Libicki, ‘Thirteen Secrets’ by Gilad Seliktar and ‘But I Live’ by Barbara Yelin.
After a successful three-year run and exhibiting at institutions such as the Stadtmuseum Erlangen, Dortmund schauraum comic + salon, Wiesbaden Kunsthaus, Ravensbrück Memorial, and Erica-Fuchs-Haus Museum in Schwarzenbach a.d. Saale, Germany, the Bergen-Belsen Memorial is now the sixth institution to host the exhibition. The location of the exhibition also has personal and historical significance, as Emmie Arbel survived the concentration camps at Bergen-Belsen when she was just a little girl.
With the publication of Barbara Yelin’s graphic novel Emmie Arbel: The Colour of Memory, more of Emmie’s story has since been shared. In response to its arrival, the exhibition has been expanded to include new original materials.
Exhibitions only come to life through collaborative team efforts. Thank you to Barbara Yelin and Jakob Hoffmann for their leadership, their creative vision, and dedication, and thank you to Dr. Akim Jah and the educational team at the Bergen-Belsen Memorial for making this exhibition possible.
‘But I Live. Remembering the Holocaust’ will be hosted by Bergen-Belsen Memorial from May 11 until June 30, 2025.
As part of our Yugoslav Wars Research Cluster, Swiss comics artist Jared Muralt has been collaborating with a Roma woman, Ružica (not her real name), retelling her life in Serbia in the 1990s where the discrimination and violence of the Yugoslav Wars shaped Ružica’s childhood.
The concept drawings and character sketches for the graphic novel project “Ružica’s Last Summer” were recently showcased at the Berner Design Foundation’s annual BESTFORM exhibition from March 28 to April 27, 2025. This event represents the first public showing of Jared’s work on the project.
The Berner Design Foundation supports professional designers from the fields of graphic and product design, ceramics, fashion and textile design as well as scenography, while managing the Canton of Bern’s collection of applied arts.
In addition to hosting Jared’s work, the Berner Design Foundation has generously supported Jared’s graphic novel through additional funding. We gratefully acknowledge their contribution to our project, and their support in expanding the graphic narrative to bring Ružica’s story to life.
In February 2023, graphic artist Tobi Dahmen was introduced to Syrian survivor Akram al-Saud by Dr. Uğur Ümit Üngör, the Research Cluster Co-Lead on the SSHRC Partnership Grant Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives Project. Based in The Netherlands, Tobi and Akram have been collaborating locally over two years in a series of interviews to share Akram’s unique story of surviving a series of Syrian prisons.
Since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime on December 8, 2024, Syria has opened up to the world again, and the international community has begun to learn more about the oppression and injustices of the regime. This webinar will feature Tobi Dahmen and Akram al-Saud discussing their collaboration, in conversation with Dr. Üngör and Project Director Dr. Charlotte Schallié. They will explore the difficulties of representing imprisonment and torture, and how graphic narratives can help survivors of mass violence find a voice.
Tobi Dahmen Tobi Dahmen, born in 1971 in Frankfurt/Main, is a German illustrator and comic artist. He has published several comic books, including Fahrradmod (2015). Dahmen has received numerous awards for his work and is currently working on a new graphic novel with a Syrian survivor as part of the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives Project. The graphic novel Columbusstrasse: Eine Familiengeschichte 1935-1945, was released on May 29, 2024, and is available to order online here.
Akram al-Saud Akram al-Saud is from Deir Ez-Zor and now lives in the Netherlands. He has been arrested four times before fleeing from Syria. His longest detention began on March 28th, 2010—before the revolution—and lasted for nine months. At the time, he was a student at the Faculty of Architecture in Aleppo, and was arrested by the intelligence services of the air force. After the 2011 revolution, he was arrested three more times. Dr. Uğur Ümit Üngör Uğur Ümit Üngör (PhD Amsterdam, 2009) is Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Amsterdam and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies. His main areas of interest are genocide and mass violence, with a particular focus on the modern and contemporary Middle East. He is an editor of the Journal of Perpetrator Research, and coordinator of the Syria Oral History Project. His publications include Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property (Continuum, 2011), and the award-winning The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950 (Oxford University Press, 2011). From 2014 to 2019, Üngör coordinated a Dutch Research Council-funded research project on paramilitarism, which led to the monograph Paramilitarism: Mass Violence in the Shadow of the State (Oxford University Press, 2020). He is currently working on its follow-up monograph Assad’s Militias and Mass Violence in Syria (forthcoming, 2025). He is also co-author of Syrian Gulag: Assad’s Prison System, 1970-2020 (I.B.Tauris, 2023).
Dr. Charlotte Schallié Charlotte Schallié is a Professor of Germanic Studies in the School of Languages, Linguistics and Culture at the University of Victoria (Canada). Her teaching and research interests include memory studies, visual culture studies & graphic narratives, teaching and learning about the Holocaust, genocide and human rights education, community-engaged participatory research, care ethics, and arts-based action research. Together with Dr. Andrea Webb (UBC), she is the Project Director of a 7-year SSHRC-funded Partnership Grant entitled Visual Storytelling and Graphic Art in Genocide and Human Rights Education.
Thank you to our project partner, the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria, for hosting this webinar. A special thanks to Jodie Walsh, Operations Director and Research Coordinator, and Lia Lancaster, Events and Administration Assistant, for their invaluable support.
In a session titled ‘A Kind of Resistance: Illustrating Holocaust Survivor Stories’ that took place at the Pennsylvania State University on February 25, graphic artist Miriam Libicki discussed the collaborative nature of her graphic narratives. During the event, she showed a detailed deconstruction of the process of building a graphic novel out of interviews and active collaboration with survivors, historians and researchers. She discussed the unique strengths, as well as challenges, of using comics to depict the Holocaust, and to depict subjective memory in the absence of photographic documentation.
Students engaging with workshop drawings created in session. Photo credit: Kobi Kabalek.
During the follow-up event on February 26,, ‘Inking the Unthinkable: A Sense-Memory Writing and Cartooning Workshop’, participants engaged in a drawing exercise to experience the creative process as an act of memory, observation, and communication. According to Libicki, this hands-on memoir comics workshop was inspired by educator/cartoonist Lynda Barry’s theories of creative concentration as “deep play,” and writing as “delivering an image.”
Workshop drawing exercise, led by Miriam Libicki. Photo credit: Miriam Libicki and Kobi Kabalek.
Miriam Libicki’s most recent collaborative piece, ‘A Kind of Resistance’, was published in the anthology of Holocaust survivor graphic memoirs But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust which received the Canadian Jewish Literary Award in 2022.
For further reading about the collaborative nature of Miriam’s art and the research behind her graphic narrative featured in But I Live, please click here.
‘A Kind of Resistance: Illustrating Holocaust Survivor Stories’ February 25, 2025 2:00 pm EST W043A Dewey Room Collaboration Commons, Patee Library Pennsylvania State University Event link: https://events.la.psu.edu/event/a-kind-of-resistance/
‘Inking the Unthinkable: A Sense-Memory Writing and Cartooning Workshop’ February 26, 2025 2:00 pm EST College of Liberal Arts – 133 Sparks Building Pennsylvania State University Event link: https://events.la.psu.edu/event/inking-the-unthinkable/
From left to right: Éléonore Goldberg, Alan Goldman, Miriam Libicki, Charlotte Schallié, Lee Gilad and Randy Lee Cutler.
This year’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27) marked the 80th anniversary of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp liberation. In commemoration of this event, the Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECU) hosted a talk to recognize victims of the Holocaust and its impact on survivors. Project Director Dr. Charlotte Schallié was invited to discuss the graphic novel But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust with the ECU community, including students, faculty, and staff.
Dr. Schallié extends her gratitude the the ECU team for hosting the event:
I learned so much from all of you and was deeply touched by the ECU faculty and staff members who reflected on artwork made by Holocaust survivors and their descendants. It’s rare to find such a caring and supportive space of togetherness and belonging, and you created it for all of us! Thank you!
“Remembering the Holocaust: 80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz” February 12, 2025 3:30 – 6:00 pm PST Emily Carr University Boardroom, D2315 520 East 1st Avenue Event Contact: Lee Gilad | lgilad@ecuad.ca
On February 24, Dr. Schallié will visit the University of Toronto to present on ‘Relational Memory, Shared Authority and Reciprocity in the Making of Barbara Yelin’s Emmie Arbel: The Colour of Memory‘.
Event description: In this presentation, Charlotte Schallié discusses her arts-based collaborative research with graphic novelist Barbara Yelin and Holocaust child survivor Emmie Arbel. Their work together resulted in two publications, the most recent one being Emmie Arbel. The Colour of Memory (2023), co-edited with Alexander Korb. Barbara Yelin’s graphic novel expands Arbel’s seven-page witness testimony into a book-length graphic narrative inviting us to reconsider the role of creative practice in gathering and representing living memory. As a published graphic novel, Emmie Arbel. The Colour of Memory is a multi-genre creation. It is a collaborative piece of scholarship based on mutual care and relationship building, an artistic rendering of a life narrative, and an artwork that documents creative practice as research.
When Barbara Yelin met Emmie Arbel for the first time at the Ravensbrück Memorial in 2019, Arbel conveyed to the artist that she remembered very little “from the war.” In traditional eyewitness testimonies, such memory gaps create significant obstacles resulting in an incomplete oral history document. Yet, in Yelin’s artwork, Arbel’s embodied memories and silent interactions are not just made visible, they are inseparably interwoven into the (hi)storytelling. Dr. Schallié will elaborate on how creative renderings of nonverbal expressions of memories in Emmie Arbel. The Colour of Memory may challenge our understanding of testimony, agency, and absence.
“Relational Memory, Shared Authority and Reciprocity in the Making of Barbara Yelin’s Emmie Arbel. The Colour of Memory” Monday, February 24, 2025 4:00 – 6:00 pm PST Room 100 – Jackman Humanities Building 170 St. George Street University of Toronto
