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Personal Histories in the Public Archive: Archiving the Klaus Zwilsky Story – Webinar – Jan 29

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Aubrey Pomerance working with objects from the Zwilsky collection at the
Jewish Museum Berlin. Photo credit Charlotte Schallié.

What happens when family history becomes part of the public archive?

Join us for a presentation and discussion with Aubrey Pomerance, Head Archivist of the Jewish Museum Berlin; Klaus Zwilsky, Holocaust survivor; and Dr. Charlotte Schallié, SCVN project director and professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Victoria, as they examine how archives with personal histories can be developed with care.

As a curator, Aubrey Pomerance worked with the Zwilsky family’s documents, photographs and objects relating to their experiences in Berlin, Germany, where they survived the Holocaust at the Jewish Hospital. This webinar will explore Aubrey’s archiving of the Zwilsky Collection in conversation with Dr. Charlotte Schallié. They will be joined by Klaus to reflect upon his collaboration with Aubrey and the complexity of having personal family history become part of the public archives. The discussion will be followed by a question and answer period for attendees.

This webinar is part of the 2026 Archiving with Care series, a collaboration between UBC Public Humanities Hub and the Survivor Centered Visual Narratives Project.

Personal Histories in the Public Archive: Archiving the Klaus Zwilsky Story
Thursday, January 29
10:00 – 11:30 am PST
Webinar Info: https://publichumanities.ubc.ca/events/event/personal-histories-in-the-public-archive-archiving-the-klaus-zwilsky-story/
Registration Link: https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7alvVDG4OgnUwom

Speaker Profiles

Left: Klaus Max Zwilsky, middle: Aubrey Pomerance, and right: Dr. Charlotte Schallié.

Aubrey Pomerance is the Head of Archives at the Jewish Museum Berlin. Born in Calgary, Canada, he studies Jewish Studies and History at the Freie Universität Berlin. There he was a research assistant at the Institut für Judaistik in 1995 and 1996 and thereafter at the Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institut for German Jewish history in Duisburg. In April 2001, he took up his position at the Jewish Museum Berlin, being responsible for the establishment of a branch of the Archives of the Leo Baeck Institute and for the museum’s archival collection. He is the community liaison overseeing the Zwilsky Collection working with Klaus Zwilsky and his family, which connected him with the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives (SCVN) Project.

Klaus Max Zwilsky was born in Berlin, Germany, on August 16, 1932. He and his parents survived the Nazi regime in the Berlin Jewish Hospital, where his father was an administrator, while his mother did forced labor at Siemens. Following the end of the war, Klaus became the first boy to celebrate a Bar Mitzvah in Berlin. In 1946, he and his parents emigrated to the United States. After obtaining his Doctor of Science degree from MIT, Klaus pursued a career in Materials Science and Engineering.

In 2000, he began organizing an extensive collection of papers left by his parents, detailing the fate of his extended family who perished during the war. He organized his family’s personal papers from the war period and donated these documents to the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Klaus has frequently returned to Berlin to participate in Holocaust workshops for German high school students and other educational programs organized by the Jewish Museum Berlin. He has also spoken extensively to share his personal experiences with high school and middle school students as well as social and professional groups in the United States.

Charlotte Schallié is a Professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Victoria. 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 and arts-based action research. Together with Dr. Andrea Webb (UBC), she is the co-director of the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives Project (www.visualnarratives.org), funded by a 7-year SSHRC Partnership Grant.

Thank you to the UBC’s Public Humanities Hub team for co-hosting
and faciliating this webinar!

‘Al-Faẓia’ part of scientific experiment at Betweter Festival, The Netherlands – Sept 26, 2025

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On September 26, pages from Tobi Dahmen’s graphic novel Al-Faẓia’ – The Horror: Surviving Syria’s Prisons were included in a one-day scientific experiment in visual journalism. Al-Faẓia’ is about survivor Akram Al Saud’s experiences as a prisoner of the totalitarian Assad regime, and the experiment presented students with panels from his story to review. The experiment, called ‘Voer Voor Je Feed’ (Food For Your Feed), was organized by Winnifred Wijnker and Yael de Haan, researchers at Hogeschool Utrecht, for the 2025 Betweter Festival. Its goal was to understand how young people’s experience of reading the news changed when the stories were presented in the form of comics. Over one hundred people participated in the experiment.

Pages from Al-Faẓia’ used in the experiment. Photo credit: Tobi Dahmen.

The Betweter Festival is a one-day event that celebrates science and art through a mix of presentations, interviews, film screenings, musical performances, interactive scientific experiments, and more. The festival has been held annually at TivoliVredenburg since 2016.

More information about this year’s festival can be found at the Betweter Festival website.

Photos of students from the event reviewing the graphic narratives and pages from Al-Faẓia’. Photo credit: Winnifred Wijnker.

‘Zeitzeichnen. Comic & Erinnerung’ exhibit opens at Turm zur Katz – Nov 7, 2025 – Mar 15, 2026

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After a successful four-month run at the Kunsthaus Wiesbaden under the title ‘I will not be silent! Drawn Memories in Comics’, curator Jakob Hoffmann’s exhibit is now featured at the Turm zur Katz in Konstanz as ‘Zeitzeichnen. Comic & Erinnerung’ (Drawing Time. Comic & Memory).

For this exhibit, Jakob Hoffmann has brought together internationally acclaimed, award-winning artists Tobi Dahmen, Nora Krug, Birgit Weyhe, and Hannah Brinkmann, all of whom ‘shed light on history through graphic storytelling’. The exhibit features original drawings, sketches, interviews, and research materials from the development of their graphic narratives.

Three of the four artists—Tobi, Nora, and Birgit—are collaborating on upcoming graphic novels with our Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives project. While Nora and Birgit are not presenting work associated with the SCVN project, Tobi’s collaboration with the Iraq/Syria Research Cluster is featured, showcasing panels from Al-Faẓia’ – The Horror: Surviving Syria’s Prisons. It tells the story of Akram Al Saud’s experiences as a prisoner of the totalitarian Assad regime. Al-Faẓia’ will be published by Carlsen Verlag in June, 2026 and University of Toronto Press in fall 2026.

Left: Panels from all artists, title translation: ‘Violence and its representation: What can one endure?’ Right: Panels from Al-Faẓia’. Photo credit: Torben Nuding.

The exhibit opened on November 6 with a panel discussion between Jakob Hoffmann, Birgit Weyhe, and renowned literary and cultural scholar Prof. Dr. Aleida Assmann. Then, on November 16, Birgit Weyhe sat down with Holocaust survivor Ernst Grube to discuss her book Time Heals No Wounds: The Life of Ernst Grube.

Photos from opening night, which included a panel discussion followed by a book signing and viewing of the exhibit. Photo credit: Torben Nuding.

‘Zeitzeichnen. Comic & Erinnerung’ will be open until March 15, 2026. Turm zur Katz offers free public tours on the first Sunday of every month. For more details about the exhibit, visit their website here.

To read about the exhibit’s run at the Kunsthaus Wiesbaden, follow the link to our blog post.

‘Community Engagement and Intercultural Sensitivity: Ethics, Design and Practice’ – Panel and workshop with Rwanda Research Cluster

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On October 13, the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities hosted a panel and workshop featuring members of SCVN’s Rwanda Research Cluster titled ‘Community Engagement and Intercultural Sensitivity: Ethics, Design and Practice’. It was led by Dr. Fransiska Louwagie and featured three speakers with backgrounds in ethnographic research: Drs. Anna Ball, Erin Jessee, and María Soledad Montañez. The full day event included an online panel in the morning and an in-person workshop in the afternoon, hosted at the Sir Duncan Rice Library at the University of Aberdeen.

The panel focused on how community engagement is an increasingly important academic practice, offering insightful pathways to both the impactful dissemination and collaborative creation of new knowledge.

Anna Ball introducing the morning panel session. Photo credit: Fransiska Louwagie.

It explored the questions: how can we ensure that engagement practices are sensitive to the cultural identities, practices and beliefs of those within the communities with which we work? And how can we design community engagement practices that enhance understanding, dialogue and agency across perceived differences, in ethical ways?

Following the panel, the workshop invited the speakers to share their experiences with safeguarding, consent, positionality, trauma-informed practice and participant agency. They examined what interculturally sensitive community engagement looks like in terms of research design, ethics and practice. They also focused on the use of listening as a methodology for community engagement of various styles, with lessons from academic experts in intercultural fieldwork with varied communities, including survivors of the Rwandan genocide and people navigating the asylum system.

Thank you to the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities and University of Aberdeen for hosting the panel and workshop.

From left to right: Rwanda Research Cluster Co-Leads Fransiska Louwagie and Erin Jessee, with Advanced Research Fellow, Anna Ball. Photo credit: Fransiska Louwagie.

For more information about the event: https://tockify.com/sgsah/detail/355/1760349600000

The Wiener Library hosts film premiere of ‘Why We Dance’ and panel with Research Cluster Co-Leads – Oct 23, 2025

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On October 23, SCVN’s project partner the Wiener Library is hosting a talk to explore how graphic novels have proven to be a powerful medium for sharing stories of the Holocaust and other genocides and mass atrocities.  

A panel discussion will reveal those lessons are currently being applied in the creation of new survivor-centered graphic novels about the Holocaust and the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

Drawing on the expertise of three of the SCVN’s Research Cluster Co-Leads, Dr. Erin Jesse, Dr. Fransiska Louwagie and Dr. Alexander Korb, the talk will showcase the potential of the graphic novel medium to portray survivor stories. The researchers will discuss how the project works with artists and survivors to create new educational approaches.

The evening will include the public premiere of our short film, ‘Why We Dance’, that has been made by filmmaker Marc Ellison about the team’s current co-creative work with Rwandan genocide survivor Jerome Irankunda and graphic novelist Michel Kichka (the son of a Holocaust survivor).

Event Details
Venue: The Wiener Holocaust Library (London, UK)
Date: October 23, 2025
Time: 6:00pm – 8:00pm (GMT+1)

Visit the Weiner Holocaust Library main website for more information and registration:
https://wienerholocaustlibrary.org/event/project-talk-why-comics-telling-survivor-stories-through-graphic-novels

Trailer of ‘Why We Dance’:

2025 Annual General Meeting in Amsterdam: Mobilizing Knowledge and Conceptualizing Public Engagement

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Guest blog feature by Elissa Boghosian

On June 19 and 20, 2025, project partners from the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Iraq and Syria Research Cluster hosted a two-day Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Amsterdam for the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives project. The AGM was preceded by a public event on June 18: ‘Visualizing Survivors’ Voices: How graphic novels strengthen historical understanding of witnesses’ experiences’. It featured a live reading of the forthcoming Al-Fazia –The Horror: Surviving Assad’s Prisons by Akram al-Saud and Tobi Dahmen with a panel discussion.

This year’s AGM convened eighteen Research Cluster Co-Leads, project partners and researchers from Canada, England, Germany, The Netherlands, Scotland, and Switzerland. The AGM focused on how the five Research Clusters can prepare to “go public” through the publication of their graphic novels and associated public engagement activities. Hosted at the Royal Netherlands Academy of the Arts and Sciences’ (KNAW) Trippenhuis, the AGM provided a forum for participants to consider cross-cluster collaboration opportunities, conceptualize public engagement, share research cluster progress from the last year, and contemplate milestones for the years ahead.

SCVN Annual General Meeting for Year 3: ‘Knowledge Mobilization’ at the Royal Netherlands Academy of the Arts and Sciences’ (KNAW) Trippenhuis. Photo credit: Jennifer Sauter.

Day 1 began with cross-cluster conversations. Each Research Cluster met on a rotating basis with the other clusters to explore connections between their work, share challenges, and consider how insights from other groups could inform their own approaches.

In the afternoon, a facilitated conversation with the Iraq and Syria Research Cluster led by Fransiska Louwagie invited reflection on the cluster’s experiences developing their graphic novels and their public trajectories. The day concluded with a discussion about project planning for 2025 and beyond, including archiving, long-term community engagement strategies, audience conceptualization, graphic novel publicity, and more. Each cluster contemplated these topics and developed preliminary timelines for Year 4 of the project.

Charlotte introducing the AGM: What does it mean to “go public”? (left) and Fransiska Louwagie leading a discussion with the Iraq and Syria Research Cluster’s Leyla Ferman, Kjell Anderson, Kees Ribbens and Uğur Ümit Üngör (right). Photo credit: Jennifer Sauter.

Day 2 started with presentations from four external speakers involved in the development and/or use of graphic novels about mass violence. Steven Stegers (Euroclio) spoke about using visual media in history teaching while Rob Verheijen (Hogeschool Arnhem Nijmegen) presented on using World War II and Holocaust graphic novels in Dutch history education.

Steven Stegers from Euroclio presenting (left) and Rob Verheijen (right + below) leading our team through a workshop engaging with a Holocaust comic for highschool students to identify characters as perpetrators, victims, helpers, bystanders and society.

Sabine Rutar, Franziska Zaugg and Erin Jessee. Photo credit: Jennifer Sauter.

Fransiska Louwagie, Andrea Webb, Shannon Leddy and Elissa Boghosian. Photo credit: Jennifer Sauter.

Following these presentations, Kees Ribbens moderated a conversation with Bas Kortholt (Kamp Westerbork) and Adriaan Baccaert (Kazerne Dossin) about the development and publication of Picturing the Unimaginable: Ten Comic Authors, Ten Stories about the Holocaust and other Nazi Crimes (see below). In addition to speaking about the graphic novel itself, Bas and Adriaan shared about the associated exhibition and other public engagement considerations from the project.

Adriaan Baccaert (Kazerne Dossin) far left, with Bas Kortholt (Kamp Westerbork) presenting, moderated by Kees Ribbens (right). Photo credit: Jennifer Sauter. Cover of Picturing the Unimaginable (right).

The program concluded with status update presentations from each Research Cluster, showcasing moving film trailers and artwork from their graphic novels. It was a formative moment for each Research Cluster to share their progress and journey since their initial gathering at our Year 1 AGM in Glasgow.

We would like to thank our hosts, project partners and all those who contributed to the fruitful discussions throughout the AGM in Amsterdam. We hope the program offered participants meaningful opportunities to learn, share, and connect, and that it laid a strong foundation for the next year of the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives project.

Webinar and public debut of ‘Two Roses’: Arts Based Storytelling and the Holocaust – July 15, 2025

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As noted above, on July 15, the Friends of Simon Wisenthal Center for Holocaust Studies will host a webinar titled “The ‘Two Roses’ Project: Arts-Based Storytelling and the Holocaust”, introducing the forthcoming graphic novel sharing the extraordinary story of Toronto-based Holocaust survivor Rose Lipszyc to the public.

The program will open with an introduction to the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives project, highlighting its ethics of care framework that centres the voices, agency, and emotional well-being of Holocaust survivors. This will be followed by an overview of Two Roses, including a brief reflection on Rose Lipszyc’s biography and lived experience.

Miriam Libicki will then read selected pages from Two Roses and join Dr. Charlotte Schallié and Dr. Mark Celinscak in a conversation about their collaborative work with Rose. They will discuss the unique potential of comics to convey survivor testimony with emotional depth and visual impact.

The event will conclude with a Q&A session, during which we are honoured to invite Rose to take part in the discussion.

Many thanks to the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies for coordinating and hosting this webinar.

To register for this virtual event, please click here.

Art and Testimony Webinar Toolkit with UBC’s Public Humanities Hub

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How Can Visual Narratives Disrupt Traditional Conceptions of Testimony?

From January to November 2024, the University of British Columbia’s Public Humanities Hub co-hosted the Art and Testimony webinar series with the University of Victoria’s Survivor-Centered Visual Narratives project. The series brought together researchers, artists, historians, non-profit directors and other professionals to discuss how different mediums of artistic production can function as a form of testimony.

Building on the conversations, practices, and resources shared during the six webinars, SCVN is excited to announce the Art and Testimony Toolkit based on the webinar series. The toolkit includes recordings and transcripts of each of the six webinars categorized by three thematic clusters: 1) Performance as Testimony; 2) Videotaped Interviews, Graphic Novels and Comics as Testimony; and 3) Teaching through Visual Testimony. The toolkit also includes notes, commentary, illustrations, references and quotes that complement each webinar.

The toolkit is available on the UBC Public Humanities Hub website here.

Art and Testimony Webinar Series

The webinar series explored a wide range of artistic forms from live performance to graphic novels to newspaper comics, the series sought to highlight the power of testimony to tell stories in a unique way. For instance, Dr. Henry “Hank” Greenspan in the webinar ‘Listening, Telling, Showing (and Back)’ underlines how he sought to resist the ‘conventional’ testimonial approach by engaging in dialogue rather than extraction. By returning to the same survivors over months and even years, Hank sought to reconnect and develop the survivors’ stories as they pieced together parts of their memories, often evolving their own narratives.

In a similar vein, several webinars touched on how drawn narratives leave space for imagination and creation, both for those giving the testimonies and the researchers working with them. Barbara Yelin’s collaboration with Holocaust survivor Emmie Arbel demonstrates how drawn narratives function as a tool for engaging with memories that defy easy articulation. Developed initially from just seven pages of notes, their book, Emmie Arbel: Die Farbe der Erinnerung, grew out of what they called “puzzle memory work,” where they sought to hold space for the linearity of memory.

The webinar series emphasized how visual narratives have the potential to disrupt traditional testimony collection practices, which often favour language over image. In response, the toolkit builds upon our expert speakers’ knowledge and resources, and suggests various visual mediums and approaches to arts-based research methodologies for understanding survivor experiences.

SCVN would like to extend a warm thank you to all those who contributed to developing the toolkit. Special thanks to the author, Serikbolsyn Tastanbek; advisors, Heather Joan Tam, Jennifer Sauter, Charlotte Schallié, and Andrea Webb; technical support, Stanley Chia; illustrator, Raey Costain; and transcribers, Lucie Kotesovska, Kate Kristianson, Henri Jefferis, and Claire Fenton. The toolkit would have never come together without the hard work and dedication of the team.

To view the Art and Testimony Webinar Series, please click here.

‘Visualizing Survivors’ Voices’: On the Power of Graphic Novels to Share Personal Narratives of Mass Violence

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Guest blog feature by Elissa Boghosian

On Wednesday, June 18, the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies hosted a public event at Spui25 in Amsterdam: “Visualizing Survivors’ Voices.” The event featured contributions from Dr. Charlotte Schallié and Dr. Andrea Webb, Co-Directors of the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives (SCVN) project; graphic artist Tobi Dahmen; survivor of the Assad regime and the narrator of Dahmen’s forthcoming graphic novel, Akram Al Saud; and NIOD historians Dr. Kees Ribbens and Dr. Uğur Ümit Üngör. The event served as a prelude to the SCVN project’s two-day Annual General Meeting in Amsterdam.

At the heart of the public event was the question: How can graphic novels strengthen historical understanding of mass violence survivors’ experiences?

On the Trajectories of Graphic Novels

Kees opened the event with an overview of the evolving uses and public perceptions of graphic novels. He observed that, historically, “there has not always been a recognition of the power of comics”. However, from the late 20th century onward, there has been growing recognition of the medium’s capacity to convey the experiences of survivors of mass violence and human rights violations. Today, Kees offered, we are still realizing the potentials of graphic novels:

 “In 2025, we are still discovering what serious graphic novels can express. We are still finding out how they open up new ways of historical understanding. We are still trying to figure out what interpretations, connections, and identifications readers derive from engaging with graphic novels, and also, we are trying to figure out where the limits of the medium’s possibilities actually lie.”

Kees Ribbens introduces the public panel event. Photo credit: Jennifer Sauter.

Public Reading: Al-Fazia – The Horror: Surviving Assad’s Prisons

Following the introduction, Akram and Tobi read from their forthcoming graphic novel Al-Fazia – The Horror: Surviving Assad’s Prisons. This reading marked the first time in the project’s history in which a survivor participated in a live reading, and it was the first such time for Akram as well. The moving presentation provided the audience with a glimpse into the manuscript that details Akram’s survival of Assad regime violence and the thoughtful collaboration between Akram and Tobi behind its visual retelling.

From the top left: Akram Al Saud and Tobi Dahmen read an excerpt from the graphic novel, Tobi sharing process sketches, panelists from left to right Charlotte Schallié, Tobi Dahmen, Akram al-Saud, Uğur Üngör, and Andrea Webb. Photo credit: Jennifer Sauter.

Deepening the Dialogue

The reading set the stage for a group discussion between Charlotte, Andrea, Uğur, Akram, and Tobi. The conversation initially focused on the relationship between Akram and Tobi in the graphic novel co-creation process. They reflected on questions such as: What does it mean for an artist and survivor to work together over an extended period of time? How did their creative partnership unfold? Why did Akram decide to share his story? And how did Tobi navigate artistic choices about depicting mass violence?

“What I appreciated in Tobi…[was] that he didn’t stand a distance from my story. No. He was trying most of the time to come closer, trying to, let’s say, collect the fragments.” – Akram

“I tried to get closer to the situation but always be aware that I could never totally depict an experience like that.” – Tobi

“It was a very caring process.” – Akram

Tobi Dahmen and Akram Al Saud in conversation on panel. Photo credit: Jennifer Sauter.

The second half of the conversation shifted to broader questions about the capacities and potentials of graphic novels about mass violence: How can a graphic novel hold the weight of genocide and mass violence? How can the medium be used to depict survivors’ experiences with care and complexity? And how can graphic novels serve as educational resources? Uğur spoke about the power of graphic novels to break through layers of silences surrounding mass violence. In the Syrian context, he identified three interconnected silences this graphic novel helped confront: 1) National silences enforced by over 50 years of violent authoritarian rule under the Assad regime; 2) Secrecy surrounding the prison system in particular; and 3) Personal silences, as few Syrians – inside or outside the country – had been invited to share their stories in such a public way.

Andrea described how graphic novels can activate student engagement with testimonies:

“When we talk to youth and in education, individual stories are powerful. We need to see the scale, but we also need to connect and give meaning for youth, and also prepare for a post-survivor world, so these testimonies are not lost.”

The discussion concluded with reflections on medium’s potential to elevate voices from the recent past that have often been left out of public discourse, offering meaningful and lasting contributions to education, memory, and, perhaps, justice. Following the formal ‘Question and Answer’, audience members continued to engage with the presenters and ask them questions during the event’s reception.

More information about the event is on the Spui25 webpage: Visualizing Survivors’ Voices – SPUI25, and the full recording is available to view below: