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The Artist Archives: ‘A Kind of Resistance’ reflections by Olivia Kozlovic

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SCVN invited Holocaust Studies MA student Olivia Kozlovic to share her insights gained while archiving the artistic materials from artist Miriam Libicki‘s graphic narrative, A Kind of Resistance, one of the three stories our the award-winning graphic anthology But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust (2022). This blog is a digital exhibit representing months of work, reflections, and even some consultations with Miriam, to better understand her artistic approach and process to working with survivor stories.

Content Warning: This post contains depictions of graphic violence and mature themes.

Guest blog by Olivia Kozlovic

A Kind of Resistance, the first chapter of But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust, tells the story of David Schaffer and his family fighting to survive in the forests of Romania during the Holocaust. A Kind of Resistance came out of a collaboration between Schaffer and graphic artist Miriam Libicki. The But I Live project, as well as the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives project of which it is a part, aims to capture the stories of child survivors of the Holocaust through a co-creative process between artists and survivors, one which allows them to see their lives represented visually for the first time.

But I Live captures the voices of child survivors of the Holocaust, increasingly few of whom are still alive, and showcases their stories of survival in the form of a graphic novel. The graphic novel medium is significantly more accessible than traditional audiovisual testimony. A Kind of Resistance, in particular, highlights a little-known history of the Holocaust, focusing on the experience of Jews in Transnistria and the role Romanian Nazi collaborators played in perpetrating the Holocaust in that region. 

Map of Romania and territories under Romanian administration between 1941-1944. Photo credit: Wikipedia Commons, 2025.

This digital exhibit, informed by my experience of archiving the project files for A Kind of Resistance, showcases the progression of a single page of the graphic novella, from initial sketch to final draft. Although some pages followed a slightly different trajectory, the development of page 24 is typical of the majority, and thus exemplifies how the chapter as a whole came together. My intent is to provide a glimpse into something the book on its own does not show. The creative process is obscured when only looking at the final page, but by looking into the archive we can see how this single page, and, by extension, the entire book, was constructed. Page 24 comes about two-thirds of the way through the story, and combines several key elements of David and his family’s fight for survival while hiding in the forests of Transnistria. It showcases the hunger that is a central theme of the story, not only in terms of needing to find food, but of the hunger to survive, both coming in the face of forces bent on their destruction. All these factors made this incident worthy of a full-page spread, as a small but crucial piece of David’s story of survival.

It is important to note that this reconstruction of Miriam’s creative process is a limited one, based on my observations as I moved through the archives and on how I personally pieced together the construction of this particular page of the story. Although I was fortunate enough to have a conversation with Miriam about her work on this project in November 2025, I imagine her own perspective of how the chapter came together would greatly differ from the one I will showcase here. 

Final draft for page 24 for A Kind of Resistance (2022). Image credit: Miriam Libicki.

The earliest iteration of page 24 that I encountered in the project archives was in a page from Miriam’s notebook, which included a sketch of a sugar beet; presumably drawn during one of her conversations with David. The page includes a number of other illustrations: significant plants from the region, for example, and objects such as the bag David carried or the rags he wrapped around his feet after outgrowing his shoes, details that all come to play a significant role in the final story, albeit not on the same page as the sugar beet illustration. This initial sugar beet sketch served as the key detail around which the entire page was eventually built. However, the true significance of this sketch would not be revealed to me until I encountered the transcripts of Miriam and David’s conversations at the very end of the archiving process. 

The first sketches of the sugar beet, Miriam Libicki’s notebook (2020).

The next iteration of the page that I came across appeared in the form of a pencil sketched storyboard page, consisting of four panels, which show the sugar beets falling out of an overloaded cart with a nearby David waiting to collect them as they fall, David’s father being beaten by a Romanian soldier, and a cross-section diagram of a sugar beet. This early storyboard, though obviously a rough draft, is characteristic of most of the pages in the book, which typically remain consistent in content even as they undergo further refinement. It is worth noting that not every page in the story received an early pencil storyboard. As I discovered in my conversation with Miriam, some pages had their origins not as pencil sketches, but in digital form instead. This page is among the pages which did originate with a sketched pencil storyboard, but she explained to me that this is not necessarily the rule for all pages appearing in the final story. 

Storyboard sketch for page 24 (2020). Image credit: Miriam Libicki.

In order to accurately depict David’s experiences, Miriam drew on a number of references when composing each page. For page 24, these references included botanical illustrations of different beet varieties, which she used to illustrate the beets falling off the cart as well as the cross-section diagram of a beet appearing in the final panel. These references images are presented roughly in the order I encountered them in the archive, but because I did not deliberately select the order in which I went through the reference files, the order of these images does not matter nearly as much as the order of the drafts does. Additionally, the botanical illustrations and the cross-section diagram of a beet reflect David’s analytical gaze, borne of his engineering background, and a crucial element of his personality which Miriam told me she sought to incorporate in various illustrations throughout the chapter. 

Botanical references for drawing beets.
Photo credits, left: Golden beet illustration by Johann Simon Kerner, published in 1789 by Stuttgart.
Middle: Beet, source unknown. Right: Beet illustration by Giorgio Bonelli, published in 1783-1816, in his book Romanus juxta Systema Tournefortianum.

Additional reference images that went into the composition of page 24 include photos of mills from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, used in depicting the exterior of the mill that is the centerpiece of this particular scene, and images from an illustrated guidebook of soldiers from WWII, used to depict the Romanian soldier who beats David’s father and Mr. Landau in the page’s third panel. The reference images for this particular page were not directly recreated on the final page, which I noticed was the case for a handful of other reference images, but they significantly influenced how this page was illustrated, and ensured that the images appearing in the final story were as accurate as possible, whether in a historical sense or a botanical one. 

Historical reference images for drawing the mill and Romanian soldiers.
Left: 1800s House and Windmill, sketch from around 1860 from the Archives of Manitoba. Middle: 1900s Windmill photograph from 1900, published in N.W. Farmer. Right: 1940s Romanian soldiers, illustration by Horia Serbanescu, published in 1992 in The Romanian Army of World War II by Mark Axworthy.

The next key stage in the project’s completion was the creation of the first digital drafts for each page and the incorporation of text taken from David’s story that determines the final layout of the individual page. For page 24, as with the other pages which were originally sketched as pencil storyboards, the earliest digital draft was built from the sketched storyboard, with the illustrations from that sketch scanned and added to Photoshop, alongside a rough layout of where the text would appear on the finalized page. A handful of pages in the earliest digital drafts saw changes in their layout or arrangement with subsequent drafts, but page 24, along with most of the other pages in the chapter, retained similar or identical layouts from this point onwards. 

Draft for page 24, no colour (2020). Image credit: Miriam Libicki.

Once the page layout had been determined, the scanned pencil sketches from the original storyboard were traced over or refined in digital outlines of the elements appearing in each illustration. The outlines are colour-coded, which allows each individual element of the illustration to stand out, while also making the different people appearing on each page easy to identify—a strategy that I figured is especially useful with illustrations of large groups, or images where some figures are further in the background than others, as seen in the third panel of this page. As with the other pages, these digital outlines form the basis of the lines used in the watercolour illustrations on the final pages, with this stage of the creative process being used to refine the illustrations from their initial rough sketches and ensure that the changing depictions of David and his parents over the course of the story are linear and accurate. Miriam created a series of sketch sheets that served as a reference for how the depictions of David and his parents evolved over the course of the chapter, and the reference sketch sheets of both David and his father as they appear in the final third of the story reflect how they appear in the final illustration. 

Draft of page 24 (left), sketches of David (middle), and sketches of David’s parents (right) (2020). Image credit: Miriam Libicki.

The next set of drafts represent a crucial step towards completion. These drafts consist of full watercolour pages, but exclude any overlaid text elements. As seen below, these scans may vary in quality or include some pencil outlines in places, particularly around the outlines of text bubbles. However, these initial watercolour drafts indicate that the pages are nearly complete, only in need of some final touch-ups and reincorporation of the text elements from the earlier drafts. In reorganizing the files within the archive, I attempted to group each set of drafts by approximate order of when they were completed, but, as many of the drafts past the watercolour stage closely resemble one another, I found it impossible to determine the precise timeline along which these drafts were complied. 

Text-free drafts of page 24, full colour. Image credit: Miriam Libicki.

The final stage of putting each page together was the reincorporation of the text from David’s testimony, now included in a font built from Miriam’s handwriting rather than in plain typed text, as with earlier drafts. For page 24, once the watercolour was complete and the text elements reincorporated, there were virtually no changes, although other pages in the story saw some minor refinements at this stage. With regard to text reincorporation, the first five pages feature drafts that are solely made up of text, in order to correctly position the text on the page and also test out various fonts or styles, but as this page appears fairly late in the story, it does not have a lettering-only page available among the drafts. 

Final drafts for page 24, full colour. Image credit: Miriam Libicki.

The final drafts of page 24 were not, in fact, the last aspects of the page’s creation I encountered in the archive. Instead, the very last items I looked at were the transcripts from the initial meetings between Miriam and David, which contain the origins of the page in one particular conversation the two had. In this conversation, David describes going to the local mill to make flour from the leftover wheat he and his family gathered after the harvest. He was given the task of collecting the sugar beets that fell off the carts going past the mill while his father and Mr. Landau waited in line. This process was interrupted, however, when a Romanian soldier came and beat both men for being too close to the mill as Jews, splitting David’s father’s ear in the process. David, upon witnessing this, hid in the bushes to ensure his father’s safety while leaving behind the sugar beets he had gathered, but ended up facing his father’s anger upon returning home for leaving behind valuable food when they were in desperate need of sustenance. This conversation was captured by Miriam on the previously mentioned page of sketches that includes the sugar beet illustration, which is evidenced by the fact that the remaining illustrations on the page come from other stories David tells in the course of that same conversation. Thus, in my final encounter with the project archives, the story of page 21/24 at last came full circle. 

Screenshots of the transcript from the conversation between Miriam Libicki and David Schaffer, discussing the appearance of the beets and the attack by the Romanian soldier (2020).

Every page of the story came together slightly differently, though for the most part they all followed a similar path to page 24. The process through which each page moved from initial sketch to final version was one I uncovered only after examining the entirety of the project archives, and perhaps may still be an incomplete picture of the creative process, as I only have what was made available to me in the project archives and a single conversation with Miriam.

Even if my picture of the creative process is an incomplete one, it is still guided by my own expertise in this area, in part as a student archivist who has spent many hours looking at every single item in the project archives and seeking to place them in the context of the complete, published story, and, in part, as a student in the Holocaust Studies Masters program with a substantial basis of knowledge surrounding the events that all three survivors whose stories are captured in But I Live experienced. These two areas of knowledge are what I leaned on when seeking to piece together the creative process, as well as when speaking to Miriam about her work on this project. My sincere hope is that my expertise has allowed me to construct the best possible outline of how this work came together, even though I did not encounter these archives until well after the book had been published. 

Continue the Story

Page 24 is only one small window into a much larger project. A Kind of Resistance is the first chapter of But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust, a collection that brings together graphic narratives by Miriam Libicki, Gilad Seliktar, and Barbara Yelin, created in close partnership with four child survivors. It was shortlisted for the 2023 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award for Best Reality-Based Work. The book also includes personal words from each survivor and historical essays. Learn more about But I Live.

Miriam’s latest graphic novel, Two Roses: A Story of Deception and Determination in Nazi Germany (2026), is also a product of the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives project. It tells the story of Holocaust survivor Rose Lipszyc and her aunt Rose Finkielsztajn, who survived the war under false identities as Polish gentile sisters. Learn more about Two Roses.

As this digital exhibit highlights, behind every finished page lie months of conversation, research, and revision. Thank you for taking a look inside the archive.

Thank you to the University of Victoria’s Libraries and Art Collections for supporting the development of our archival materials.

The Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives project is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Government of Canada. We are grateful for their support in making this work possible.

‘Planting Seeds of Justice’: Reflections from the AGM by Marie-Chantal Plouff

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Guest blog reflection by Marie-Chantal Plouff

From June 10 to June 12, 2026, I had the opportunity to attend the annual meeting of the Survivor-Centered Visual Narratives (SCVN) project at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) in Winnipeg, Canada. Over the course of three days, I was reminded that the work of human rights education extends far beyond the finished products that eventually reach a classroom. Behind every story, every graphic novel, every lesson plan, and every conversation about the past is an enormous network of people whose contributions may never be visible to the final audience.

The SCVN project uses arts-based and trauma-informed research to honour the diverse and unique voices of genocide survivors. At its core is a difficult but important balance: recognizing the universal condemnation of mass atrocities while remaining attentive to the historical, cultural, and political contexts in which different communities experienced them. By bringing together survivors, artists, researchers, educators, community liaisons, and other collaborators, the project creates space for dialogue across distinct memory communities while centering survivor agency.

The broader goal is not simply to document the past. It is to develop new methodologies for remembering and teaching about past crimes, contribute to future prevention, and support communities as they continue to navigate the wounds left by mass violence. I joined this project as a research assistant, working specifically on the development of educational materials for high school teachers and students across Canada. My task has been to help make these materials accessible, engaging, and trauma-sensitive, with the broader objective of encouraging human rights education in Canadian classrooms.

For months, my work has largely consisted of sitting with words: considering how information should be presented, how difficult histories can be introduced responsibly, and how educational materials can invite students into conversations about human rights without reducing complex experiences to simple lessons. Attending the annual meeting changed how I understood that work.

Seeing the Invisible Labour

One of my strongest realizations throughout the meeting was the sheer amount of invisible labour behind a project like SCVN. When students eventually encounter a graphic novel in their classroom, they will experience the story as a finished object. They will never see the research meetings, revisions, negotiations, consultations, educational planning, artistic discussions, or countless hours of preparation that made that moment possible.

The survivors’ stories are, rightfully, at the centre of the project. Yet, surrounding those stories is an entire community of people working to ensure that they are represented responsibly and meaningfully. These are researchers, educators, artists, graphic designers, translators, community liaisons, students, administrators, and many others contributing to the process. Some of us may be working closely with the graphic novelists and survivors, while others are several steps removed from them. Yet all these contributions are part of the same chain.

This was particularly meaningful to me because my role is one of those less visible pieces. I am focused primarily on educational content rather than the visual production of the graphic novels themselves. I am not drawing the stories or designing their pages. However, during the meeting, a graphic designer was present virtually to visually translate our discussions in real time. Watching our conservations become images was unexpectedly powerful.

Ideas that had existed only as words on a page or as discussions around a table suddenly had a visual form. The drawings captured not only the substance of our conversations but also something of the atmosphere in which they were taking place. They made visible the collective effort behind the project and, in a sense, gave shape to the invisible labour we were all contributing.

There was something almost magical about watching the seriousness of our discussions coexist with moments of humour, creativity, and collaboration. We were engaging with histories of genocide, violence, displacement, and profound human suffering. The work is heavy but we were also a group of people helping one another carry that weight.

Truth, fact, and the role of visual storytelling

Another particularly insightful part of the meeting was a guest session with Shayna Plaut, the Director of Research and Exhibition Development at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which prompted us to think about how graphic novels challenge traditional assumptions about neutrality, objectivity, and historical fact. One idea that stayed with me was the notion that “truth is greater than fact.”

At first, this may seem counterintuitive. When discussing historical atrocities, surely facts are essential, but the discussion pushed us to consider the difference between factual accuracy and the broader truth that emerges when we try to understand human experiences. Comics and graphic novels occupy an interesting space in this regard. They are not simply repositories of historical information. They are interpretive and visual forms of storytelling. They create a shifting space of consensus in which readers encounter history through images, dialogue, perspective, emotion, and narrative. This makes the responsibility of the project even greater.

The purpose is not to replace facts with interpretation, but to ground interpretation in truthful and responsible representations of lived experiences. It is an approach that recognizes how teaching about mass violence requires more than providing students with a list of dates and events. It requires creating opportunities for students to understand the human dimensions of these stories.

The people who make stories possible

Perhaps the most important connection across all our roles was the opportunity to witness the survivors’ stories themselves. During the meeting, we had the opportunity to view the Yezidi and Syrian short films and to hold the Two Roses graphic novel in our hands for the first time. We also met individuals who serve as essential intermediaries between the project team and the survivors whose stories we are helping to bring into educational spaces. Their role cannot be understated.

I was struck by the amount of negotiation and care involved in the process of transforming lived experiences into a form that can eventually be shared with students. Survivors’ community liaisons, researchers, and artists must continually navigate questions of representation, trust, accuracy, and agency. The process is not simply a matter of asking someone to tell their story and then reproducing it. There is a relationship that must exist first.

Individuals such as Leyla Ferman (Iraq/Syria Research Cluster) demonstrate the importance of what I would describe as a “kinship of trust,” a form of relationship that cannot simply be established through academic credentials. Trust is built through relationships, cultural understanding, time, listening, and accountability. This was an important reminder that human rights research cannot be separated from the people who make it possible. Academic knowledge alone is not enough. Neither is artistic ability. The work depends upon relationships and upon the willingness of people to entrust others with parts of their histories.

What does human rights education actually look like?

One evening, we stepped outside the CMHR and made our way to the Forks, where we participated in a Human Rights classroom-style panel featuring individuals who had written and published graphic novels. I was struck by their creativity and talent, but I was equally surprised by the complexity of teaching itself.

It is easy to think of teaching as the final step: the material has been created and now someone simply delivers it to students. Educators and authors working with these subjects must understand their audiences. They think about student cultures, classroom dynamics, emotional responses, attention spans, existing knowledge, and the difficulty of introducing subjects that can be deeply painful or uncomfortable. They wear multiple hats. They become authors, researchers, storytellers, and educators all at once.

This experience made me rethink what “human rights” can mean. Too often in my role, human rights is approached through a narrow legal or institutional framework. Treaties, courts, legislation, declarations, and international organizations are essential, but they are not the entirety of human rights. Human rights can also be conversational, visual, emotional, accessible, and adaptable.

They can exist in a classroom discussion, in a graphic novel, in a story shared between generations, or in a students’ first realization that something they have learned about history is connected to the world around them. That realization is particularly important for the work I am doing. My responsibility is not merely to make educational content easier to understand, it is to help create a bridge between difficult histories and the students who will encounter them.

Remembering without competing

Another conversation that followed us throughout the meetings concerned how audiences might respond to the stories represented in the graphic novels. This question is particularly important in a world where contemporary events can create intense political, cultural, and emotional attachments to communities and their suffering. There was a strong consensus around the importance of avoiding competitive victimization.

The purpose of the project is not to create a hierarchy of suffering as we are not telling these stories to suggest one community’s experience is more important, more tragic, or more deserving of recognition than another. Instead, these stories should challenge us to recognize a common thread: these are all examples of profound human rights violations that should never happen again. Each community’s history remains distinct. We should not erase those differences in the name of universality but recognize that distinct experiences do not require us to rank them.

Perhaps the most important lesson is precisely that we can remember different histories simultaneously. 

Planting seeds of justice

I want to end this reflection with Duncan McCue’s powerful idea of “planting seeds,” seeds of empathy, understanding, and human transformation. The three days I spent at the SCVN annual meeting ultimately felt like an exercise in planting seeds of justice.

I arrived thinking primarily about my role in this project: the educational materials I was developing and how I could make them accessible and appropriate for Canadian classrooms. I left with a much broader understanding of the ecosystem that surrounds that work.

I saw the artists translating conversations into images. I saw the educators thinking carefully about how students would receive difficult histories. I saw the community liaisons building relationships of trust. I saw researchers wrestling with questions of truth, representation, and memory. Most importantly, I saw the survivors’ stories whose experiences give the entire project its purpose.

The meeting reminded me that our contributions do not have to be equally visible to be equally meaningful. Sometimes, our work exists several steps away from the people who will ultimately experience its impact. We may never know the student who picks up one of these graphic novels years from now, reads a survivor’s story, and begins to think differently about history, discrimination, or their responsibility toward others. That possibility is precisely why the work matters.

For me, the experience also reframed my understanding of what I am creating as it is not simply accessible and flexible classroom materials. I am participating in the retelling and preservation of truth at a time when information can be manipulated, distorted, or forgotten with extraordinary ease. That responsibility is both daunting and inspiring.

The people involved in the Survivor-Centered Visual Narratives project are planting seeds. We are planting them with purpose and direction. By telling stories responsibly, listening to survivors, creating spaces for difficult conversations, and giving students the tools to understand the past, we can help create the conditions for something different in the future.

Sometimes, justice begins with something as small as planting a seed. The seed of human rights may be as small as a mustard seed, almost imperceptible when first planted, but its potential is immeasurable. Our responsibility is to plant them with care, with truth, and with the hope that one day they will grow into something much larger than any one of us could have imagined.

Students attending the ‘Drawing Justice’ panel on June 11, 2026. Photo credit: Maddy Rafnson. 

Teaching workshop at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland – Nov 18, 2026

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On November 18, Yugoslav Wars Research Cluster Co-lead Dr. Franziska Zaugg is hosting a 1-day workshop titled ‘(Gewalt-)Geschichte als Comic? Neue Möglichkeiten der Vermittlung’ / ‘(Violent) History as a Comic? New Possibilities for Communicating and Teaching’ for teachers at the University of Fribourg. It will provide an overview of graphic novels as part of historical scholarship, share approaches from the SCVN project, and explore how to teach violent histories through graphic novels. Project artist Jared Muralt will share insights on his experiences working with a Roma survivor of the Yugoslav Wars in Ružica’s Last Summer. The workshop also includes Dr. Tatia Gruenbaum, who is developing the teaching resources for our graphic novels published in German.

The workshop outline is translated from German to English below, and registration is available here.

Workshop outline:
Historical scholarship continues to rely primarily on written texts, both in its use of source materials and in its research literature. With regard to epistemic and experienced violence, the question arises as to how this can be adequately discussed with school and university students, as well as among fellow historians. For several years now, graphic novels (also called “comics” in Switzerland) have offered a new approach. Art Spiegelman’s “Maus,” now considered an icon of this genre, made comics a recognized medium for historical engagement with the Holocaust through its visual representation of history. Since then, the number of possible approaches to (violent) history via graphic novels has increased. Examples include Joe Sacco’s works on the besieged Sarajevo of the 1990s and Jacques Tardi’s on the First World War.

In this professional development course, we aim to establish a foundation by providing an overview of graphic novels in historical scholarship in the first part. In this section, we explain important works, their reception history, and how the approach to the comic genre in historical scholarship has gradually changed.

In the second part, we will specifically address our approach in the large-scale project “Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives.” This will demonstrate how this new approach to the history of violence is shaped by the fact that the survivor is not merely an interviewee, but an integral part of the project from beginning to end. At a time when students are increasingly working with the method of oral history and sometimes even conducting interviews themselves, this second part offers insights and demonstrates ways in which respectful engagement with people who have experienced violence can be ensured in projects.

In the third part, we will explore the teaching of (violent) history through graphic novels in the classroom. The following questions will be central: How do artists, eyewitnesses, and historians collaborate? How does the spoken word—the narrated memory, but also the invisible aspects of epistemic violence—become a narrative in images and words? How does historical expertise find its way into this story? How does the artist manage to tell biographical stories in such a way that life memories are made visible and coherently embedded in a broader historical context? And how can history be conveyed through a comic?

In a fourth and final part, graphic novelist Jared Muralt will join us and provide direct insights into his work before we conclude the day with a feedback session.

Target audience: Secondary school teachers, teachers of lower and upper secondary education

Course instructor:
Franziska Anna Zaugg , PhD, Department of Contemporary History, University of Fribourg

Guest speakers:
Tatia Gruenbaum, PhD, Visiting Scientist, Technical University of Braunschweig
Jared Muralt, graphic artist

Date and location:
November 18, 2026, from 9:15 am to 4:45 pm
University of Fribourg’s Continuing Education Center

Register here: https://www.unifr.ch/formcont/de/katalog/4487

Please note this workshop will be conducted in German.

Drawing of Yelin sitting on a chair writing in a note book, leaned over. Black spirals arise above her head.

Swiss Cartoonmuseum Basel exhibits Barbara Yelin’s original art from ‘Emmie Arbel. The Colour of Memory’

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An exhibition of Barbara Yelin’s original drawings, including works from SCVN’s 2023 publication Emmie Arbel. The Colour of Memory (Emmie Arbel. Die Farbe der Erinnerung), will open at the Cartoonmuseum in Basel, Switzerland on November 28, 2026. The exhibition, simply titled “Barbara Yelin,” will be on display until March 7, 2027.

On Emmie Arbel the museum notes, “Yelin recently adapted the biography and memoirs of Emmie Arbel, who survived three Nazi concentration camps as a child, into a graphic novel–a multi-layered and critical reflection on memory. The collaborative project ‘Wie geht es dir?’ (How are you doing?), which she co-initiated, will be published in autumn 2025. It addresses the topics of racism and anti-Semitism, and responds in a nuanced way to current events in the Middle East.”

Page 21 from Emmie Arbel. The Colour of Memory (Emmie Arbel. Die Farbe der Erinnerung) by Barbara Yelin (2023).

Describing Yelin’s other work, the exhibition also writes, “[Yelin] is known for atmospherically dense graphic novels with sensitively told stories. In her first books, ‘Le Visiteur’ (2004) and ‘Le Retard’ (2006), which were initially published in France, she established her style: narratively powerful, visually nuanced. Her work often focuses on stories of women’s lives, embedded in well-researched, historically accurate contexts. In order to avoid clichés and to convey politically charged themes in new images, Yelin uses ambivalence and ruptures: Each of her albums is stylistically unique and the drawing technique always depends on the content. In ‘Gift’ (Poison), she portrayed a female serial killer executed in the early 19th century, while in ‘Irmina’, a young woman is faced with the opportunity to climb the social ladder under the Nazi regime.”

According to the Cartoonmuseum, this will be Yelin’s first major solo exhibition featuring original and independent works, and illustrations for magazines and children’s books.

The opening of the exhibition is on Friday, November 27. Learn more here.

There will also be two Cartoon Sunday workshops with Barbara at the Cartoonmuseum entitled ‘How are you doing?’

More information, including opening times and the gallery’s location, is available on the Cartoonmuseum’s website.

“Zeichnen ist Denken” (Drawing is Thinking), Barbara Yelin, (2019).

Student exhibit at Ravensbrück Memorial – June 2026

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The reach of the graphic novel Emmie Arbel: The Colour of Memory (Emmie Arbel. Die Farbe der Erinnerung) extends beyond professional and university settings, and into the classroom. In Germany, Year 8 and 9 pupils studying “remembrance” in their Protestant religious education classes created 21 acrylic paintings inspired by Emmie’s story as a contemporary witness. The art project was created for an interfaith commemoration marking the anniversary of liberation of Ravensbrück concentration camp in April of 1945. Through their paintings, the students reflected on a central idea running through all such projects: that the past is not something to leave behind, but something to carry forward with colour, and with hope.

The student exhibition “Memory of Colour” (Erinnerung der Farbe) opened at the Ravensbrück Memorial on June 17, 2026. During the event, guests were welcomed by Dr. Matthias Heyl, Head of the Memorial’s Education Department. Religious education teacher Holger Schmidtke provided insights into the project’s development and the students’ engagement with Emmie Arbel’s story. The presence of Emmie Arbel herself was a truly special experience for the students, and they were given the opportunity to present and explain the artworks they had created. Musical accompaniment was provided by Corry Sindern and the artworks remain on display in the Ravensbrück Memorial’s Grand Foyer.

Emmie Arbel being greeted by teacher Holger Schmidtkel on June 17, 2026, at the exhibit opening at the Ravensbrück Memorial. Photo credit: Julia Gerberich / Mahn-und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück.

Students showcasing their work and meeting with Emmie at Ravensbrück Memorial’s opening exhibit, June 17, 2026. Photo credit: Julia Gerberich / Mahn-und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück.

Many thanks to Dr. Matthias Heyl and Ravensbrück Memorial for hosting the exhibit, and Holger Schmidtke’s class for participating.

Theatre performances bring colour to memory: New works inspired by Emmie Arbel’s story

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Barbara Yelin’s graphic novel Emmie Arbel: The Colour of Memory continues to inspire new generations of artists and students to engage with the life of child Holocaust survivor Emmie Arbel through theatre and dance.

“There are some things I know, but I don’t remember”

In 2025, a theatre piece “Manche Sachen weiß ich, aber ich erinnere mich nicht” (“There are some things I know, but I don’t remember”), was developed by director Sharon On with Theater Strahl’s youth ensemble in Berlin. The ensemble embarks on a journey together to explore their own biographical connections to the Shoah and to examine the relevance of Emmie Arbel’s story to their lives today. Participants draw upon images, texts, research, and their own experiences. Together with actors from the Theater Strahl ensemble, they bring this story to life artistically on stage. The play was performed from June 13 to July 5, 2025 at the Theater Strahl and on July 13, 2025 at the Ravensbrück Memorial.

Reflections on the final performance can be viewed online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp87N5cnTjM

“Sound in the Silence – Raise Your Voice”

Inspired by the first theatrical production, a second performance project, “Sound in the Silence – Raise Your Voice”, enables teenagers and young adults to engage artistically and personally with the history of the Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp through survivor Emmie Arbel’s graphic novel. After getting to know the historic site through a guided tour and a visit to the exhibition, participants are given the opportunity in various workshops (dance, rap, sound, voice) to become aware of their thoughts and feelings and to find ways to express them artistically. The focus was on encouraging participants to develop their own voice and stance, as well as to make connections to their own life stories and current social developments. They also have the chance to talk to Emmie, who was there during the project week. With the support of the memorial’s education team and the artistic team led by the American-Jewish rapper Dan Wolf, a performance is ultimately created – as a new form of remembrance that goes beyond standardized rituals.

Performance of the ‘Sound in the Silence’ at the Ravensbrück Memorial in June, 2026. Photo credit: Tamara Kanfer.


The “Sound in the Silence – Raise Your Voice” was developed by Ravensbrück’s educational department and coordinated by Zazie Rothfuchs, and with support from the EVZ Foundation and Germany’s Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. The artists leading the workshops were Kat Rampackova, Chris Find, Sean Palmer and Dan Wolf. Beyond. Since 2025, it has expanded to other sites, including the Osthofen Memorial, and returned to Ravensbrück in June 2026 with students from Freie Universität Berlin and Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts creating a new performance.

For more information on these exciting performances, and to see clips from the stage productions, please visit these websites:

https://www.theater-strahl.de/programm/manche-sachen

https://www.ravensbrueck-sbg.de/veranstaltungen/theaterprojekt-manche-sachen-weiss-ich-aber-ich-erinnere-mich-nicht

https://www.ravensbrueck-sbg.de/en/educational-programmes/cultural-education

German book launch and reviews for ‘Al-Faẓia’ الفظیع – The Horror: Surviving Syria’s Prisons’ – May 26, 2026

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The book launch for Tobi Dahmen’s graphic novel Al-Faẓia’ الفظیع – the Horror: Surviving Syria’s Prisons, inspired by Akram Al Saud’s experiences in the Syrian prison system, took place on May 26, 2026, at the Carlsen Verlag publishing house in Hamburg, Germany. The event included a reading by Tobi, followed by a moderated discussion with Matthias Wieland, Akram, and Tobi, during which they shared insights into their collaboration and creative process. The trailer of their upcoming documentary film, How to draw darkness? a story from Syria was also screened.

Book launch of Al-Faẓia’ الفظیع – the Horror: Surviving Syria’s Prisons on May 26, 2026, at publishing house of Carlsen Verlag in Hamburg, Germany. Photos Courtesy of Carlsen Veralg.

Akram reflected on their partnership and shared:

With great care, patience, and sensitivity, Tobi transformed years of memory and conversations into a visual narrative.

Al-Faẓia’ is personal, but it is not only personal. It belongs to a much larger Syrian memory: the memory of detainees, survivors, victims, families, and everyone still asking for truth and justice.

The book launch was followed up with presentations and readings at the Wilhelm Liebknecht Central Library on May 27 and at the Luisenbad Library on May 28 in Berlin. In June, Tobi participated in a talk with journalist Christopher Haas at the annual International Comic Salon held in Erlangen. The Comic Salon also featured their work in an exhibition “Defending Democracy” from May 7 to June 9, 2026. He was one of thirty artists chosen to display their political cartoons, comics and drawings. Tobi continues to tour with the graphic novel, and his latest readings and events can be found on his blog: https://www.tobidahmen.de/latest-news

First Reviews of Al-Faẓia’

Since its debut in May, Al-Faẓia’ has received positive and thoughtful reviews from critics and reviewers alike.

Ella Rendtorff from the German daily newspaper taz stated:

By suggesting more than he depicts, he achieves a sensitive visual language for his subject’s traumatic experiences…the graphic novel Al-Faẓia’ الفظیع – the Horror is a powerful testament to courageous resistance.

An article by German culture blog Highlight Zone noted:

More powerfully than a newspaper article or a TV report, this comic, complete with an extensive appendix, conveys the tragic story of a young Syrian man, whose fate is unfortunately far from unique.

Monthly German cultural magazine kulturnews observed that:

The unique collaboration between Tobi Dahmen and Akram Al Saud demonstrates how the unspeakable can find expression in art.

An intellectual history blog, Rotsinn highlighted how:

Dahmen “distances” Al Saud’s narrative so effectively that we, the readers, are not alienated from this story, but rather can begin to grasp, at least in part, what was happening in Syria, what was happening in this specific life of one person.

The graphic novel was also featured in the Dailyklappentext book podcast episode 497.

We are grateful for the first reviews and features on the German release of Al Faẓia’, and look forward to the upcoming English publication by the University of Toronto Press in November 2026.  

‘Emmie Arbel. The Colour of Memory’ – Exhibition at Buchenwald Memorial July 24 – Oct 25, 2026

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We are pleased to announce that original watercolours, sketches, and excerpts from the graphic novel Emmie Arbel: The Colour of Memory (Emmie Arbel. Die Farbe der Erinnerung) will be featured in an exhibit at the Buchenwald Memorial in Germany from July 24 to October 25, 2026. The exhibit is titled ‘Emmie Arbel. The Color of Memory. An exhibition with paintings by Barbara Yelin’, and is part of the German Academy Rome Villa Massimo’s Festival of Scholars where Barbara Yelin had a 1-year artist residency. It is launching on Friday, July 24, with a panel discussion featuring Emmie Arbel, Michal Arbel (Emmie’s daughter), and Jakob Hoffmann (curator).

The exhibition is the result of the art-based collaboration between Barbara and Emmie, supported by the SCVN project and Dr. Matthias Heyl from the Ravensbrück Memorial. As noted by project director Dr. Charlotte Schallié:

the graphic narrative emerged from a long-term, survivor-centered co-creative process grounded in shared authority and sustained trust, in which Holocaust survivor Emmie Arbel participated as a knowledge-holder and research partner.

This marks the third instalment of the exhibition, having previously been exhibited at the Ravensbrück Memorial in 2024 and at the Bergen-Belsen Memorial in 2025.

Ravensbrück Memorial 2024. Photo by Eberhard Schorr.

Bergen-Belsen Memorial, 2025. Photo by Marion Reis.

The Buchenwald Memorial holds Europe’s largest monument dedicated to the remembrance of Nazi concentration camp victims. It serves as a site to learn and remember the Holocaust. Additional information about the memorial can be found here.

The graphic novel, released in 2023, is available in German, English, French and Spanish. The German edition is also available from the Bundeszentrale for Politische Bildung (Federal Agency for Civic Education): https://www.bpb.de/shop/buecher/schriftenreihe/561642/emmie-arbel-die-farbe-der-erinnerung/

More information about the graphic novel collaboration is available on the Holocaust Research Cluster page.

‘Gib nicht auf!’ book launch in Hamburg, Germany – Nov 12, 2026

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We welcome you to join the German book launch for Gib nicht auf! Wie eine Junge Ezidin den Völkermord überlebt (Don’t Give Up! How a young Yezidi survived the genocide) at the Fux eG arts cooperative in Hamburg, Germany on Thursday, November 12, 2026.

This graphic novel is a collaboration between artist Birgit Weyhe and Yezidi survivor Jilan (pseudonym) who survived the 2014 genocide against the Yezidi in Sinjar, northern Iraq, where she was captured and sold into slavery. The book was produced by our Iraq/Syria Research Cluster

The graphic novel is the first time Jilan shares her story publicly: about the fear of death during her captivity, her life as a slave, her eventual escape, coping with her trauma, and the first steps toward a new, self-determined life in Germany.

The event will feature a reading by graphic artist Birgit Weyhe and a panel discussion with Birgit, Kamal Murad (Ezidi Youth Union) and Christiane Hess (Hamburg Foundation for Memorials and Learning Sites in Memory of the Victims of Nazi Crimes).

Following the panel discussion, there will also be music by Nesibe and a catered a reception.
Registration is not required.

Please contact Dr. Leyla Ferman (leyla.ferman@gmail.com) if you have any questions about the event.



Event Details: Book Launch of ‘Gib Nicht Auf!‘
Date: November 12, 2026
Time: 7:00 – 8:30 pm (doors open at 6:30 pm)
Location: fux eG, Zeiseweg 9, 22765 Hamburg

Panelists

Birgit Weyhe is a comic book artist. She was born in 1969 in Munich and achieved a Master’s Degree in German Literature and History, as well as a Diploma in illustration. Weyhe‘s Graphic Novels have been nominated for various prizes in Germany, France and Japan. Her books focus on research-based historical and political themes. In 2022 she was honoured the ‘Best German-language Comics Artist’ at the International Comic-Salon in Erlangen. She was also the first comic artist ever to receive the prestigious ‘Hamburg Lessing Grant’. Her Graphic Novel “Rude Girl” was shortlisted in 2022 for the Hamburg Literature Prize as Book of the Year and in 2023 the first comic ever to be nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize. Her Comic “Schweigen“ is nominated for the German Youth Literature Prize. She lives and works in Hamburg. Her books have been reviewed in all major German print media (e.g., Die Zeit, SZ, FAZ, Tagesspiegel, taz, FR).

Dr. Leyla Ferman is a political scientist and researcher with extensive experience in project leadership, research, and international collaboration. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Leibniz University Hannover, where she studied decentralization and ethnic conflicts in Turkey. Her professional work spans academia, public institutions, research organizations, and civil society. She currently works at Qualiservice, SOCIUM – Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy at the University of Bremen, focusing on research data management, project support, and the curation of anonymized data collections. Previously, she led a documentation and education project at the Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation. Her research and publications focus on genocide, memory, minorities, democracy, and participation.

Kamal Murad is part of the Ezidi Youth Union / Youth of Germany (Ezidische Jugend Deutschland e. V. (EJD), a registered, non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the young Ezidi (Yezidi) diaspora community in Germany. As Germany is home to the largest Ezidi diaspora in the world, the EJD provides a vital network for young people navigating life between traditional culture and modern German society. The association also operates a central platform alongside regional branches—such as the Ezidische Jugend Deutschland Nordrhein-Westfalen e. V. (the country’s first state-level association for Ezidi youth, founded in 2018).

Dr. Christiane Hess is a German historian, author and educator who currently works at the Foundation of Hamburg Memorials and Learning Centres commemorating the Victims of Nazi Crimes. In this role, she is responsible for historical and political education, as well as the public programme, particularly for the Fuhlsbüttel and Stadthaus memorial sites. One of her main areas of research is the visual and material culture of the Nazi camps and the Holocaust.

Kjell Anderson is a jurist and social scientist specialised in the study of mass atrocities and human rights. He is the author of Perpetrating Genocide: A Criminological Account (Routledge 2019) and the co-editor (with Erin Jessee) of Researching Perpetrators of Genocide (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020). His book – The Dilemma of Dominic Ongwen (Rutgers University Press, forthcoming) draws from extensive qualitative interviews to examine the life of Dominic Ongwen. Ongwen is a former child soldier in the Lord’s Resistance Army (Uganda), who was recently convicted by the International Criminal Court of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Still featuring pages of Gib nicht auf! from the short documentary I Just Keep Going (2026) by filmmaker Olaf Markmann.

Work on the graphic novel began in November 2024, when Jilan met graphic novelist Birgit Weyhe in Germany—an encounter facilitated by researcher and community liaison Dr. Leyla Ferman. The work has unfolded through intimate conversations, evolving sketches, and dialogue in collaboration with research cluster co-lead, Dr. Kjell Anderson.

Congratulations to Birgit and Jilan on co-creating this incredible graphic novel and to our Iraq/Syria Research Cluster.

Gib nicht auf! is now available in German by publisher Avant-Verlag. Learn more about Gib nicht auf! here.

Many thanks to Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for our project funding, and NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies and University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Law for supporting additional pages for our graphic narrative.