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Upcoming Conference at Yale: ‘What is Testimony For?’ – Apr 26 & 27, 2026

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SCVN is collaborating with project partners the Fortunoff Video Archive, Yale Macmillan Center Genocide Studies Program, and the Sam & Frances Holocaust and Genocide Academy (UNO) to host on a two-day conference at Yale University from Sunday April 26 to Monday April 27.  The conference explores the use of testimony from the Holocaust and other mass atrocities as a source for the visual arts, literature, and new media.

The event will bring together artists, co-applicants and a survivor from the SCVN project, including Nora Krug, Tobi Dahmen, Miriam Libicki, Akram Al Saud, Charlotte Schallié, Mark Celinscak and Alexander Korb. It will also feature scholars supporting the project, including Hank Greenspan, Victoria Aarons and Sara Horowitz.

The event will take place at Luce Hall on the Yale campus. Registration for two workshops is available at the following link.

The Conference Schedule is listed below, with our project collaborators highlighted:

Sunday, April 26, 2026

5:00 PM: Panel I | Mediated Memory through the Drawn Image: Victoria Aarons (Trinity University), Nora Krug (Parsons School of Design), Miriam Libicki (Graphic Novelist, Vancouver) Respondent: Charlotte Schallié (University of Victoria)

Monday, April 27, 2026

9:00 AM: Coffee

9:15 AM: Introduction, David Simon (Yale)

9:30-11:00 AM: Opening event | Graphic Witness Beyond the Holocaust with Akram Al Saud (The Hague), Tobi Dahmen (Comic Artist and Illustrator, Utrecht) Respondent: Charlotte Schallié (University of Victoria)

11:00-12:30 PM: Panel II: Holocaust Testimony and New Media Representations with Jakob Ari Labendz (Ramapo College), Eugen Pfister (HKB Bern), Dan Leopard (Independent Scholar and Artist), Noah Shenker (Colgate) Respondent: Alexander Korb (Arolsen Archives)

12:30-2:00 PM: Lunch

2:00-3:30 PM: Panel III | Testimony and Literary Representations with Hank Greenspan (University of Michigan), Anna Veprinska, (University of Calgary), Sara Horowitz, (York University) Respondent: Mark Celinscak (University of Nebraska at Omaha)

4:00 PM: Performance | REMNANTS with Hank Greenspan (University of Michigan)

More information here: https://fortunoff.library.yale.edu/2026/03/12/what-is-testimony-for-workshop/

‘Risk in the Archive’: Webinar with UBC’s Public Humanities Hub – Mar 24, 2026

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This week, SCVN is collaborating with UBC’s Public Humanities Hub to host the second webinar in the Archiving with Care Series. The webinar is titled “Risk in the Archive: Preserving Anonymity, Access, & Cultural Memory” and will host Drs. Franziska Zaugg from the University of Fribourg, Nathaniel Brunt from the University of Victoria, and Kjell Anderson from the University of Manitoba. Drawing on each speaker’s background in specific forms of archival research and curation, the webinar will pursue ethical approaches to archival material, anonymity, and care.

The event will take place over Zoom on Tuesday March 24th from 10:00 – 11:30 am PST. More information about the event as well as speaker bios are available on PHH’s website here. Registration is required and accessible via the link.

How can an archive at risk be supported to ensure its significant cultural, historical, or evidentiary value is preserved?

What if the risk is in the process of creating the archive? Or in the decisions of what to include or exclude? How are identities protected and who has access to the anonymous records? These questions and more are critical to developing and maintaining archives at risk with care.

Risk in the Archive: Preserving Anonymity, Access & Cultural Memory
Tuesday, March 24
10:00 – 11:30 am PST
Webinar Info: https://publichumanities.ubc.ca/events/event/risk-in-the-archives-preserving-anonymity-access-and-cultural-memory/
Registration Link: https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bHq0y8TrqYopDjE

Speaker Profiles

Franziska Zaugg is a lecturer at the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Fribourg. From 2018 to 2022 she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bern, supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation/Ambizione. From 2015 to 2018, she held a postdoctoral fellowship at University College Dublin, Centre for War Studies, and from 2016 to 2018, she worked as an early career researcher in the “Transnational Resistance Project” at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on conflict and war history, resistance and collaboration movements, youth cultures, and the dialectal relationship between archives and society. Franziska Zaugg is a co-founder of the working group “History-Society-Violence” (Geschichte-Gesellschaft-Gewalt). She is also the SCVN Yugoslav Wars Research Cluster Co-Lead, working with a survivor who is a Roma woman, sharing her life experiences in Serbia in the 1990s where the discrimination and violence of the Yugoslav Wars shaped her childhood and youth. 

Nathaniel Brunt is a Canadian interdisciplinary scholar, documentarian, and educator whose work critically examines modern armed conflict and the ways it is, and has been, represented photographically. Trained as a cultural historian and documentary photographer, he studies how individuals, institutions, and communities interpret their worlds visually during wartime. He completed his PhD in the Communication and Culture joint program at Toronto Metropolitan University and York University, supported by SSHRC and the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. Brunt’s photographic work has been widely published and exhibited internationally. He is currently undertaking long-term documentary projects in Northern Iraq and Kashmir, is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria Libraries, and will be a Hannah Arendt Fellow in 2026. He joined the SCVN project in 2025 as a Research Advisor and will share his experience archiving in Iraq to support the Yezidi project archives. 

Kjell Anderson is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Manitoba, specializing in genocide, perpetrator studies, international criminal law, and transitional justice. He is the author of Perpetrating Genocide: A Criminological Account (2017) and co-editor of Researching Perpetrators of Genocide (2020). His fieldwork spans Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Bosnia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and northern Iraq, where he has investigated atrocity crimes, victim experiences, and perpetrator narratives. He has held academic positions at the University of Amsterdam, Leiden University, the University of the Fraser Valley, and the National University of Rwanda, and worked with NGOs, think tanks, and international organizations. His current projects include books on Dominic Ongwen, the Rohingya genocide, and epistemic justice and transitional justice. He is also the SCVN Iraq/Syria Research Cluster Co-Lead working with a Yezidi survivor, ‘Jilan’ (not her real name) and graphic artist Birgit Weyhe to develop a graphic novel about Jilan’s experiences during the Yezidi Genocide. His interdisciplinary research integrates legal, criminological, and social science approaches to mass violence and post-conflict accountability.

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

Educators’ Workshop – ‘Teaching the Holocaust through Graphic Novels’ – Toronto, Mar 24, 2026

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We are excited to announce that SCVN co-director Dr. Andrea Webb will co-host a workshop for educators in Toronto with the non-profit organization Facing History & Ourselves and their program assistant Amanda Baric. They will also be joined by graphic artist Miriam Libicki and historian Dr. Mark Celinscak. The workshop is on March 24, 2026 from 2:00 – 5:00 pm in person at the University of Toronto Schools. The event is free, and registration in advance is required, as catering and copies of the graphic novels will be provided: https://www.facinghistory.org/learning-events/teaching-holocaust-through-graphic-novels

REGISTER HERE


The interactive workshop provides resources and guidance to educators on how to teach the history of the Holocaust using graphic novels, including Miriam Libicki’s Two Roses and the graphic novel But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust, as materials to engage middle and secondary students. It will also support teachers interested in teaching Holocaust graphic novels or literature as core or complementary text, and history and humanities teachers who are interested in extending and deepening student learning on the Holocaust and its legacies through survivor stories.

Facing History & Ourselves is a non-profit founded in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1976, and operating in Canada since 1981. Their primary goal, according to their website, is to use “lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to racism, antisemitism, and other forms of bigotry and hate.”

Thank you to our partners at Facing History; Jasmine Wong, Leora Schaefer and Amanda Baric, for their programming and facilitation support.

This workshop was also made possible by additional funding from the National Holocaust Remembrance Program of the Government of Canada’s Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program (MARP).

April Update:

Below are pictures of the event provided by Facing History and Ourselves:

Andrea Webb presenting at the FHAO workshop.

Miriam Libicki talks about her graphic novel.

Conference Participants at the University of Toronto Schools.

Book launch of ‘Two Roses’ at Toronto Holocaust Museum – Mar 25, 2026

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We are delighted to announce that the Toronto Holocaust Museum will host the book launch of our graphic novel Two Roses: A Story of Deception and Determination in Nazi Germany on March 25, 2026. Developed by graphic artist Miriam Libicki, Two Roses depicts the story of Holocaust survivor Rose Lipszyc and her aunt Róza Finkielsztaj in Nazi Germany.

The program will include a panel conversation with Rose Lipszyc, Miriam Libicki, and co-editors Mark Celinscak and Charlotte Schallié. The discussion will be moderated by Professor Sara R. Horowitz (York University). Copies of the book will be available for purchase, and be purchased online at the University of Toronto Press.

Registration is free of charge, and guests may explore the galleries and engage with Rose’s testimony as part of the museum experience before the event.

For more information, visit the Toronto Holocaust Museum‘s page: https://torontoholocaustmuseum.org/events/two-roses-book-launch

We sincerely thank the dedicated team at the Toronto Holocaust Museum for their coordination of the book launch and making this a special event to honour Rose and her legacy of Holocaust education.

We would also like to acknowledge this event was made possible with additional funding support from the Government of Canada’s Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program’s new initiative, the National Holocaust Remembrance Program (NHRP). This program supports initiatives that seek to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and help improve Canadians’ understanding and awareness of the Holocaust and contemporary antisemitism.

Please register in advance, as space is limited, and we look forward to seeing you there!

Stuttgarter Comic Days hosts Jared Muralt – Mar 14, 2026

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On March 14, 2026, Jared Muralt will join a panel discussion at the Stuttgarter Comic Days in Germany, where he will discuss several of his projects, including the graphic novel he is developing as part of our SCVN project.

Jared is the graphic artist behind Ružica’s Last Summer, the graphic novel which explores the lived experience of Ružica, a survivor of the Yugoslav wars. We are delighted that Jared will be sharing this work in the comics scene in Germany!

Visit the festival’s website here to know more about the programme and Jared’s contribution.

You can also check out the Yugoslav Wars Research Cluster page here to learn more about the research and creation process of Ružica’s Last Summer.

Goethe Institute in Rome features exhibition of Barbara Yelin’s art

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An exhibition of Barbara Yelin’s original drawings, including works from Emmie Arbel. The Colour of Memory, opened on January 22 in Rome at the Goethe Institute. The exhibition, titled “Drawing Lives: Memory and Biography in the Work of Barbara Yelin,” features 80 panels from Yelin’s major works and will be on display until March 20, 2026.

Barbara Yelin at the Goethe-Institut exhibit in Rome. Photo courtesy of the Villa Massimo, photo credit: Alberto Novelli.

Describing Yelin’s work, the exhibition writes that, “Her palette opens spaces in which memory becomes a living experience, inviting us to encounter others and, inevitably, ourselves. Barbara Yelin’s drawings and narratives open a space that accepts many perspectives, which invites us to listen to the pain of others and to endure contradictions…”

This exhibit was developed in collaboration with the German Academy of Rome Villa Massimo (where Barbara has a 1-year artist residency), the New Academy of Fine Arts, ARF! The Comics Festival, and the European Library. The exhibition is also part of the Rome Capitale initiative “Memory Generates Future 2026.”

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

Page from ‘Emmie Arbel. Die Farbe der Erinnerung / Emmie Arbel. The Colour of Memory’ (2023).

Mark Celinscak and Miriam Libicki present at Jewish American & Holocaust Literature Symposium – Feb 2, 2026

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SCVN graphic artist Miriam Libicki and Holocaust Research Cluster Co-Lead Mark Celinscak attended the Jewish America & Holocaust Literature Symposium’s 30th annual conference from February 1 – 3, 2026 at Tulane University in New Orleans.

On February 2, they presented in a panel titled “Two Roses: Utilizing Holocaust Survivor Testimony in Graphic Art Narratives,” moderated by Oren Baruch Stier (Florida International University). The discussion focused on the project’s upcoming publication of the graphic novel Two Roses: A Story of Deception and Determination in Nazi Germany, and was an excellent opportunity to share insights from their collaboration with new audiences. Two Roses is will be released on February 24, and is available for advance purchase by the University of Toronto Press here.

Miriam Libicki (left) and Mark Celinscake (right) with a pre-publication, printed copy of Two Roses at JAHLIT, 2026.
Image gallery image
Image gallery image

Thank you to the Jewish America & Holocaust Literature Symposium for hosting Mark and Miriam!

‘Trauma-Informed Research Ethics’: Roundtable discussion at Emily Carr University – Feb 9

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On February 9, Dr. Charlotte Schallié, co-director of SCVN, will take part in a roundtable discussion focused on the ethical considerations and protocols of arts-based research with trauma survivors.

Organized by the Emily Carr University Research Ethics Board (ECU-REB), the event will take place in person at the Emily Carr University, Boardroom (D2315) and online via Microsoft Teams (registration required).

Charlotte will be joined by Dr. Alla Gadassik, an animation scholar and curator whose work focuses on media materiality, creative labour, and animation exhibition practices. You can find more details about the speakers here.

Register here

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 facilitating this webinar!