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
Project manager Jennifer Sauter was invited to participate a three-day workshop on “Healing Trauma in the Anthropocene” from May 26-28, 2026, at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden. This workshop was co-organized by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Global Resilience Partnership, and the Anthropocene Laboratory.
The workshop brought together international expertise spanning anthropology, psychology, human geography, museology, sustainability, organizational science, and the arts to explore the role that healing may play in how individuals and communities adapt or transform in the face of Anthropocene challenges. It focused on learning from different contexts, experiences and approaches to develop and spread capacities seen in the presence of healing at different scales for the psychological, emotional, and existential challenges of the Anthropocene.
Our heartfelt thanks to Michele-Lee Moore and Shiphrah Mutungi Akandiinda for the generous invitation to participate in this workshop, and to Kayoko Kumasaka and Sachiko Ishihara for your coordination and support throughout each session.
The following blog is a summary of her reflections from the workshop.
May 26, 2026
Day 1: Learning from healing trauma in different geographical and historical contexts
Upon arriving at the Linnaeus Hall at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the morning welcome and introduction created an open and understanding space for the first plenary discussions to explore approaches to healing and the capacities that influence this process. Discussions included how to document a “healing system” (Laura Calderon), considering fractal approaches to change, physical recovery and mental health challenges, and how to create systems of care (peer-to-peer).
In the first breakout group discussions, we contemplated the definition of healing and trauma, questioning: What is healing? How can it be observed in the individual versus the collective? When is healing helpful, and when is it not? How is reconciliation part of healing, and direct versus indirect healing.
My first reaction to these questions was: What does healing look like for Emmie Arbel, a Holocaust survivor SCVN has worked with? Perhaps it is when she can sit in a café without needing to have her back against the wall. To have a reactive behaviour be released from the conscious or unconscious way she navigates the world.
In the context of the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives project, we are working with survivors who have experienced trauma and who have previously shared their experiences in a public or research setting, to minimize the risk of retraumatization. Since each of our survivors are at different stages of processing their trauma and healing, our approach is to manage the risk of potential further trauma from describing their experiences. In support of this, we provide counselling while they are on the project and ensure the interviews are trauma-informed, with breaks during and in between sessions. While the opportunity for healing is not an explicit goal of project, some of our survivors feel there is a sense of healing from sharing their experiences, through having their voice heard and story documented. This is a general (and personal) observation that would require further interviews after the graphic novels are published to better understand the full impact of the SCVN project on each survivor.
When discussing how to engage in healing, there was the need to “define the trauma to define the response.” PhD candidate Ali Bitenga Alexandre identified that “trauma begins in the pockets,” such as the experience of systemic poverty being part of one’s identity. Dr. Jean Pierre Ndagijimana also shared that people will continue to respond to the effects of war through post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) and asks the question of what the ‘post’ looks after healing.
Both of these examples, and other examples of traumatic experiences, brought forth the question: Do we need a definition of trauma to be able to respond? Do we need a consensus built, and agreed upon definition that represents the trauma? Complex trauma, either individual or collective, is often very difficult to address. Beyond the trauma of poverty and war, there is also a borderless global anxiety associated with climate change that is difficult to define and to address, and therefore to heal from.
Breakout discussions: What is possible in the presence of healing that isn’t without it?
In the afternoon session, we continued to explore questions about healing and trauma. We discussed how persistence and resilience are part of an ongoing process of healing, creating transformations at different scales which challenge the concentration of existing views, structures, and practices. The questions raised were: Do we disregard trauma for an altruistic higher purpose or calling (i.e. environmental good)? What is possible in the presence of healing versus its absence? How do you know when it is happening? What are the conditions for healing? Could it be intentional or accidental (i.e. nature walks)?
In healing, there is an expansion of perceived capabilities– an increased sense of capacities within the three layers of healing (mind, body, spirit) including community and lands. When there is capacity within an individual, there is potential for participation; compared to when capacity is lacking, disengagement is likely Part of healing also includes identifying needs at individual and community levels and understanding their sense of identity and agency.
To support healing, we need mutual solidarity, financial structures, networks of support, and a humanitarian response to needs. It was suggested we need to become like ‘caterpillar goop,’ to be able to rearrange society, to go through the necessary metamorphosis.
Workshop Day 1: Introductions and breakout discussions at Linnaeus Hall at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Photo credit: Kayoko Kumasaka.
Wednesday, May 27
Day 2: Developing individual and collective capacities for living in the Anthropocene
The second day started with the option of participating in two practice-based exercises, and the session I joined was a climate-aware contemplative practice led by climate psychologist Frida Hylander. She guided us through a meditation beginning within our bodies and gently expanding spatial awareness from ourselves to the room, the city, landscape, country, planet, and beyond. When debriefing after, some of the participants had difficulty reaching higher expanses, while others found their way easily. Perhaps this reflected everyone’s capacity to engage beyond their known settings, and into the unknown at that moment.
We also discussed compassion fatigue, and clinical psychologist Freddie Lymeus emphasized that compassion is a resource, and like moste resources, is finite. Frida introduced us to the concept of the Ice Cream Model, which helps people to “navigate times of uncertainty in a sustainable way” through three bowls of collective action, coping with emotions, and pausing. All of this would be possible with a foundation of social support.
Upon returning to the larger group, we reflected on the “opportunity contexts” of individual and collective capacities which are important for facilitating sustainable transformations. For example, is an individual able to participate safely, both politically and financially? Equal opportunity to participate in transformations requires reflecting on how to support access for all, such as low-income households (UBI), physical access (transportation) and community access (ability to speak and move freely).
Participants also reflected on developing capacities for “hospicing” dying systems with dignity, that are reaching the end of their life cycle; how to manage the emotions around change and loss and accept uncertainty ahead. Participants reflected on how we balance this radical paradox and hold tensions from the process of releasing an old system all the while cultivating a new one. We discussed the power of imagination, memories, and media language that influence our ability to imagine new opportunities and alternative futures, such as altruistic world systems, while old systems decline. An excellent reflection by a participant was that we, as a society, are holding tensions, holding our unknowns in “lifeboats” and that instead of individual lifeboats we must hold on to each other to make it through difficult journeys.
The afternoon group activity was to join one of the five following discussions: A) Role of Arts B) Role of Nature, C) Difficult Emotions & Distress, D) Myths, Methodologies & World Views (David Anderson Hooker), E) Imaginal – Voice of Nature (Caroline Hickman). I joined the Role of Arts to share insights from SCVN and learn from others about additional ways the arts engage with healing. We discussed how the arts are not a socially prioritized practice, and how we frequently privilege language as expression and restoration. Reflecting on SCVN, our process has potentially helped with healing as Holocaust survivor Emmie had memories emerge which may have previously been inaccessible. However, many memories may remain equally unreachable and obscured from her as part of her healing, and to protect her.
We also discussed the ability of theatre to express embodied trauma and music to transcend language and cultural barriers, such as the non-profit organization “Music Without Borders” (Per Olsson). It’s also important to recognize that different cultures have different levels of artistic access and engagement. One participant recommended the documentary film The Act of Killing (2012) directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, as it investigates the perpetrators of the 1965–1966 Indonesian mass killings through staged dramatic re-enactments. It raised challenging questions: What to do when art is for the perpetrator? Could it be used for further harm?
At the end of this session, there was interest in developing a guide for researchers on the arts or the intersection of arts, trauma, and healing.
Workshop Day 2: Role of the arts group(left), climate-aware contemplative meditation group(middle) and group photo (right)at the Vinkelvillanat the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Photo credit: Kayoko Kumasaka.
This discussion group was led by David Anderson Hooker and explored the worldviews shaping human relationships in the Anthropocene. We discussed the influence of religious drive and authority, and cultural values such as the balance of good and evil in Javanese culture. We also questioned if a society is organized according to a system in balance, what would it look like in government and business? What if we had a circular economy? And do we shift worldviews from domain-over to a stewardship-based approach?
In our networked societies, we considered the balance between accountability and surveillance. In high-trust societies there is the expectation of accountability throughout all levels, from individual to government, and across ages and cultures. However, a level of surveillance is required to ensure there are checks and balances beyond personal accountability, to mitigate corruption. Overall, it is a privilege to interrogate these ideas through the myths, methodologies and world views compared to being locked into systems of thought and practice without question.
Friday, May 29
Day 3: Conclusion
The Healing Trauma in the Anthropocene workshop highlighted healing was not as a fixed state or outcome, but an ongoing process shaped by individual, social, and systemic conditions. It is also not solely an individual process, but one that is based upon relationships and collective care. As one participant reflected, “It’s not up to me, it’s up to we,” emphasizing the importance of community, collaboration, and mutual contributions in fostering resilience and transformations in a world facing increasingly complex social, environmental, and historical challenges.
The reflections on the last day also highlighted the value of collective intelligence for widening perspectives that emerge when different disciplines and ways of knowing come together. The collective learning of the community gathered. We discussed the importance of recognizing local epistemologies of healing, addressing the stigma surrounding mental health support, and considered how to make the knowledge generated in the workshop become more accessible and common practice.
Overall, the insights I found most meaningful were that healing expands capacity, requires strong networks of collective support, and that the arts can play a role in trauma-informed healing by transcending language and traditional forms of communication.
The recommended next steps were to continue the conversations, map the networks of practitioners and researchers, develop thematic workshops and practical toolkits, and explore how to support navigating liminal spaces which are often uncertain and disruptive between declining systems and alternative, emerging futures.
Postscript
Another highlight from attending the workshop was connecting with graphic artist Anneli Furmark, who is based in Umeå, Sweden and happen to be visiting in Stockholm at the same time. We toured the city’s arts district Södermalm and connected for dinner to discuss her upcoming graphic novel, As Long As We Are Together. Thank you for the warm welcome, Anneli!
Left: Sunset over Gamla Stan, Stockholm. Right: Graphic artist Anneli Furmark (left) and project manager Jennifer Sauter (right), in a sea of spring lilacs in bloom. Photo credit: Jennifer Sauter.
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
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.
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.
From left to right: Rwanda Research Cluster Co-Leads Fransiska Louwagie and Erin Jessee, with Advanced Research Fellow, Anna Ball. Photo credit: Fransiska Louwagie.
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.
The graphic novel being written by Gilad Seliktar about the survival of Klaus Zwilsky in the Jewish Hospital Berlin during the Second World War is nearing completion and is scheduled for publication in 2026 or early 2027. In conjunction with the SCVN project, Aubrey Pomerance, Head of Archives at the Jewish Museum Berlin, where the Zwilsky family collection is held, and Charlotte Schallié, Project Lead and Co-Director of the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives Project, conducted two workshops with university students in the museum’s Academy Building on June 10, 2025.
Aubrey Pomerance presenting various archival materials from the Zwilsky Collection. (Photo credit: Charlotte Schallié.)
The first group came from the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin, the students taking part in a seminar entitled “Emotions and Holocaust Studies.” Alongside a presentation of original materials from the Zwilsky Collection which provided a broad overview of the family’s life in Berlin and their survival at the Jewish Hospital, the students were shown documents and photographs pertaining to Edgar Lax, who in February 1939 at the age of 15 went with a Kindertransport from Berlin to the Netherlands and two months later on a further Kindertransport to England. A third presentation focused on ego documents from various collections from which a wide range of emotional expressions can be gleaned.
The second group of students came from the Free University of Berlin, where they were taking part in the seminar “Linien der Unterdrückung: Graphic Novels erzählen Geschichte” (Lines of Oppression: Graphic Novels Relate History). With this group, the focus was exclusively on the archival collection of the Zwilsky family. Following the presentation of the various archival materials by Aubrey and colleagues from the archives to both groups, Charlotte elucidated the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives Project and her previous work with graphic novels, and presented numerous examples from Gilad’s work on the Zwilsky story. The presentations were followed by a lively discussion with the students.
Students shared the following reflections about the workshops:
“The workshop with Charlotte Schallié and Aubrey Pomerance was interesting and very informative. I would like to thank them for that. We were presented with an impressive and diverse collection of sources. The focus on family history and the use of first-person documents put the scale of the Holocaust into a perspective that is often lost in view of the magnitude of the event.”
“I have always seen graphic novels merely as a didactic opportunity […] However, it only became clear to me through the workshop that graphic novels are very well suited to adequately taking into account the complexity of memory processes that the Holocaust qua essence entails. And also the production [artistic creation] process, which requires an intensive [focus and] care but above all subjective attention and, in a way, tenderness.”
Thank you to Aubrey Pomerance, and our project partner the Jewish Museum Berlin, for hosting the archival student workshops this summer. We appreciate having in-person workshops for students to engage with the Zwilsky collection, learn about archiving, and gather insights into the process of creating an SCVN graphic novel.
Learn more about Klaus and Gilad’s collaboration here.
On the day before the opening of the ‘I will not remain silent!’ exhibition at the Kunsthaus Wiesbaden, the four featured artists, Nora Krug, Tobi Dahmen, Birgit Weyhe and Hannah Brinkmann, met to discuss their creative processes when producing visual narratives. During this workshop, they had an opportunity to discuss their past and current work as well as some of the potential challenges and questions when working in the genre of visual narrative.
The event was moderated by the curator Jakob Hoffmann and featured a keynote speech by Dr. Ole Frahm on the traces of the Holocaust in comics from 1945 to now. Each of the four artists gave a thirty-minute presentation in which they reflected upon their present pieces in a larger context of their work. Nora Krug, currently the artist-in-residence at the Fortunoff Video Archive at Yale, presented on her archival research and offered a glimpse into her work in progress inspired by the recorded testimonies.
After the round of presentations, the artists had a chance to share their thoughts and questions in a discussion with each other. According to Jakob Hoffmann, the debate was very productive and “collegial” as it became evident that “all these artists face similar challenges and questions”. He adds: “Everybody was really thankful for the opportunities this event offered to everyone involved”.
For our earlier post on the Kunsthaus Wiesbaden exhibition, please click here.
In a session titled ‘A Kind of Resistance: Illustrating Holocaust Survivor Stories’ that took place at the Pennsylvania State University on February 25, graphic artist Miriam Libicki discussed the collaborative nature of her graphic narratives. During the event, she showed a detailed deconstruction of the process of building a graphic novel out of interviews and active collaboration with survivors, historians and researchers. She discussed the unique strengths, as well as challenges, of using comics to depict the Holocaust, and to depict subjective memory in the absence of photographic documentation.
Students engaging with workshop drawings created in session. Photo credit: Kobi Kabalek.
During the follow-up event on February 26, ‘Inking the Unthinkable: A Sense-Memory Writing and Cartooning Workshop’, participants engaged in a drawing exercise to experience the creative process as an act of memory, observation, and communication. According to Libicki, this hands-on memoir comics workshop was inspired by educator/cartoonist Lynda Barry’s theories of creative concentration as “deep play,” and writing as “delivering an image.”
Workshop drawing exercise led by Miriam Libicki. Photo credit: Miriam Libicki and Kobi Kabalek.
Miriam Libicki’s most recent collaborative piece, ‘A Kind of Resistance’, was published in the anthology of Holocaust survivor graphic memoirs But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust which received the Canadian Jewish Literary Award in 2022.
For further reading about the collaborative nature of Miriam’s art and the research behind her graphic narrative featured in But I Live, please click here.
‘A Kind of Resistance: Illustrating Holocaust Survivor Stories’ February 25, 2025 2:00 pm EST W043A Dewey Room Collaboration Commons, Patee Library Pennsylvania State University Event link: https://events.la.psu.edu/event/a-kind-of-resistance/
‘Inking the Unthinkable: A Sense-Memory Writing and Cartooning Workshop’ February 26, 2025 2:00 pm EST College of Liberal Arts – 133 Sparks Building Pennsylvania State University Event link: https://events.la.psu.edu/event/inking-the-unthinkable/
On October 2 & 3, SCVN Co-Director Dr. Charlotte Schallié visited a ninth/tenth creative writing class at Victoria High School (Vic High). The students, guided by their creative writing teacher, Georgina Hope, participated in an interactive lesson that brought the testimonies from ‘But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust’ into the classroom. Through discussion of the book, Charlotte introduced the students to the ways that graphic novels can support learning by creating an emotional connection to the material.
Students at Vic High participating in a graphic narrative exercise. Image credit Charlotte Schallié.
‘But I Live’ brings together three graphic narratives that share the personal life journeys of Holocaust child survivors. These stories provide young readers with accessible and emotional insights into historical events, illuminating what it meant to survive the Holocaust as a child. By connecting with individual experiences, students were encouraged to see beyond facts and figures and understand history on a personal level.
This visit also incorporated a lesson plan from the educator’s resource created by Dr. Andrea Webb. This resource package is designed to support teachers in engaging a difficult topic such as the Holocaust, using graphic narratives as an entry point to explore context, events, and the consequences of historical trauma. This approach doesn’t simply inform—it empowers students and teachers to reflect on history and develop critical skills, such as empathy and historical awareness, which remain relevant to current societal challenges.
Some of the students later shared what they learned in their own words.
I think reading the book opened my eyes and I really felt the emotion of the book. The book was definitely a great read and I’m sure it broadened my understanding. The drawings were so well done, and the mute colours really make you feel the emotion in the book. I feel what Charlotte was talking about with the graphic novels is true. We definitely should be reading more graphic novels in high schools, because they’re easy to read, but get the point across right. I don’t feel graphic novels should be seen as childish most of the time because they carry deeper stories with good morals.
A person named Charlotte Schallié came to my class, she is a professor at UVic, and an author. She talked about how graphic novels are just as valuable as normal books. I would agree with this, I think that the pictures help portray a better story than words do. She also showed us some stuff on the holocaust. It was a graphic novel, and more specifically the process of making it. They talked to multiple holocaust survivors and had them tell their stories, in their own words and only what they wanted to say. I thought that was cool, because it seems more respectful to the holocaust survivor.
I have learned that the Holocaust has killed 6 million Jews. The injustices before, during, and after the Holocaust are innumerable. It’s sad to see such hate grow for so long and so intensely. I’ve had fun with the graphic novel project, and I enjoyed the Survivors theatre production. It’s awesome to see the Holocaust explained in a compelling way, in a way that encourages readers and viewers to be in the experiences of those we read about or watch.
I have never learned about the Holocaust until this project. I found it fascinating but also so emotional to learn about. I can’t imagine what it would have been like in that time. When Charlotte Schallié came into the classroom and told us more facts and stories about the Holocaust it was fascinating. My favourite part about this project though, was the play. I enjoyed watching the good acting, and it was a more fun way to learn about this devastating event in history. People need to know. I think that this should be learned about in class more and it was a good way to learn about it through graphic novels. The Anne Frank graphic novel, I found personally, is really hard to read, but it was good all the same.
The students participated actively, exploring graphic narratives as a storytelling medium and recognizing the power of personal narrative within historical contexts. Charlotte’s visit demonstrated how art and personal testimony can bridge generations, creating a meaningful connection to the past. Thank you to Georgina and class for your engagement with ‘But I Live.’ Experiences such as this class visit emphasize the potential wide-ranging impact of the graphic novels created by the SCVN project.
