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Into the Archives with Nora Krug: The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

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On November 14, SCVN Research Assistant Lucie Kotesovska met with Nora Krug, an internationally acclaimed artist and illustrator and author of several book-length visual narratives. Nora is currently an artist-in-residence at Yale’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, where she is conducting research of the survivors’ video and written testimonies. Her aim is to produce a graphic novel based on her engagement with these archival sources.

In this interview, Nora spoke about her current research and how she envisions the form of her next book. She also shared her thoughts on the unique potential of the visual narrative when communicating survivors’ experience and whether it is ever possible to overcome the trauma of war.

Lucie: Can you tell us a little bit about your current research and your research method as you work with the materials at Yale’s Fortunoff Video Archives, and also, how do you envision the final product at this point?

Nora: I’m only just embarking on the research for the book. I haven’t fully figured out the themes yet, but roughly speaking, I think it will be about the question of resistance and forgiveness, and whether we can ever overcome political trauma, personal trauma, and retaliation, all of these aspects. I’m researching the testimonies of survivors that were recorded in the 70s and 80s that touch on these subjects. I’m watching the interviews and I’m looking for certain keywords. I’m finding it difficult to find certain information, especially when it comes to description of violence. It’s a taboo, for instance, to talk about violent acts that you might have been involved with during the resistance. That’s an interesting component, but also something that’s hard to track down at least based on what I’ve encountered so far. I’m eager to look at both men’s and women’s testimonies from various different countries. I’ve watched some in Hebrew—there’s often a transcription in English—some in German, some in Polish, some in English. It’s interesting to observe how differently people dealt with the legacy of trauma, of experiencing trauma. People experienced it in different ways and had different modes of survival. I’m interested in that too—what makes us respond to certain traumas in different ways. And while I’m doing this, I’m also doing some research outside.

From top left: Cassette tape, files, and VHS tapes from the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Photos courtesy of Stephen Naron and Nick Porter.

I would say when I embark on research, I’m not extremely systematic, I’m rather very broad. And I try to articulate the basic underlying questions that I’m asking myself for a new book project. I’m not interested in telling a story chronologically, you know, the story of one person’s life. While the testimonies are very gripping and emotional, I’ve decided not to focus on one person’s life, and not to tell a chronological story but rather approach universal themes that I find in the interviews and create a sort of collage of my own thoughts on that subject that will include individual narratives. For instance, my book Belonging was structured in this way:  I interwove several different narratives in a kaleidoscopic way. So, I think that’s what I’m envisioning at the moment—including different voices. I would also like to branch out after this year at Yale to other crimes, other wars, other cultures, and other religions, so that the subject of the book won’t entirely focus on the Holocaust, but also on how we deal with these experiences universally.

I’m not interested in telling a story chronologically, you know, the story of one person’s life. While the testimonies are very gripping and emotional, I’ve decided not to focus on one person’s life, and not to tell a chronological story but rather approach universal themes that I find in the interviews and create a sort of collage of my own thoughts on that subject that will include individual narratives. 

Now that I’m at Yale, I’ve been connecting with professors from different departments including the Visual Arts Library, the Beinecke Library, and the Psychiatry Department, to get different people’s input into these questions. I also found a photo album at a flea market in Berlin some years ago that belonged to a German soldier. He documented an atrocity committed by the German Wehrmacht in Poland in 1939. I had this album lying around for many years thinking about what I could do with it, how to make those important photographs accessible to the public. And I would like to find a way of integrating it into the narrative of this new project. So, I’ve been reaching out to historians in Poland, the United States, Germany and Austria, to get more information about the historic events surrounding the atrocity depicted in this album, and to try to find out who the people depicted in the photographs are.

From Left to right: Card catalog cabinets, video library and VHS tape from the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Photos courtesy of Stephen Naron and Nick Porter.

Lucie: It sounds as if you anticipated my next question and, in a way, already answered it. In the SCVN team, we have been wondering whether you plan to focus on one main story or several of them in your next book project. Could you talk a bit more about how you envision working with multiple narratives?

Nora: Yes, I’m trying to look at my work less as illustrated biography and more as a philosophical reflection on themes that could include multiple narratives, also contradicting ones. This was the case in my last book, Diaries of War, about Ukraine and Russia, where I portrayed the voices of a Ukrainian woman and a Russian man, and even though the Russian man was anti-Putin, it is a contradictory narrative, and it clashes with the perspective of the Ukrainian protagonist. What I’m interested in as an artist and a writer is to bring out the complexities and the subtleties and focus on narratives that can be difficult to confront, because they’re uncomfortable or because they don’t fit into our conventional understanding of war or of the Holocaust.

What I’m interested in as an artist and a writer is to bring out the complexities and the subtleties and focus on narratives that can be difficult to confront, because they’re uncomfortable or because they don’t fit into our conventional understanding of war or of the Holocaust.

Lucie: This leads me to another question. In your understanding and in your practice, what do you see as particular strengths of the visual narrative when dealing with trauma and the topics that you mention?

Nora: For me, it’s very important to recognize the whole political history of illustration as a medium. It’s always been a political medium. It was the only visual medium that communicated political and social ideas before the advent of photography. We tend to forget that now. It is a political tool that shapes the way we think and feel or that hopefully opens up new perspectives because it is so visceral and so direct. And it can provide a very direct emotional entry point into narratives about war and memory and history in a way that I think classic textbooks aren’t able to. We understand that with movies—with movies, there’s no question. I mean, fiction films about the Second World War are very emotionally gripping, but with illustrated narratives, the general population wouldn’t necessarily recognize that medium as a powerful tool in the same way. I don’t know why that is given that for centuries it was such an important tool. I mean, if you think about illustrated church manuscripts, but also illustrated representations in other religions and cultures—illustrations were always used to inform the way we think about the world, but also to propagate, for instance, stereotypical ideas like anti-Semitic depictions in the Middle Ages.

So, while I really appreciate the political strength of the medium, I’m also aware that you have to treat the medium very sensitively and responsibly as an artist. I thought about that a lot when it comes to the depiction of violence. I’m somebody who really feels that it’s important to not avoid violence in images because we need to know what happened, for instance, during the Holocaust. If there hadn’t been any photographs taken at the time when the camps were liberated, our understanding of the Holocaust would be so much more limited. So, I think I’m really a proponent of showing images, of witnessing historical events, even if they’re hard to look at. But at the same time, there are many different ways of representing violence as an illustrator. It’s more a question of how rather than if you should show violence. But that is a component I think about a lot—what’s my responsibility as an illustrator to illuminate these subjects without being voyeuristic or sentimental. It’s sometimes a very fine line.

Illustrations from ‘On Tyranny Graphic Edition: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century’ by Nora Krug and Timothy Snyder, 2021.

But at the same time, there are many different ways of representing violence as an illustrator. It’s more a question of how rather than if you should show violence. But that is a component I think about a lot—what’s my responsibility as an illustrator to illuminate these subjects without being voyeuristic or sentimental. It’s sometimes a very fine line.

Lucie: You mentioned that as a researcher and illustrator working with the trauma of war and mass atrocities can be extremely challenging. Can you speak a little bit about how this might affect you, and also how do you take care of yourself during this process?

Nora: Unfortunately, I don’t reflect enough on how I should take care of myself, because I always focus on my sense of responsibility of dealing with these subjects rather than on how my research will make me feel. I think my curiosity is what drives me forward despite the difficulty of the subject matter. When I wrote Belonging, a lot of people said, oh, that was so brave. I never thought of it as brave. I always felt like I simply had to find out what happened. I had such a burning desire to understand war and why people fight wars and how we live with the trauma of war that everything else was pushed into the background. I know that’s problematic because I also do a lot of visual research and looking at those photos probably impacts me emotionally on some deep level.

As illustrators, we have to do a lot of visual research, which means you look at photographs of the Warsaw ghetto or other atrocities throughout history. I try to switch into a professional mode when I do that, but it probably weighs on me in ways that I’m not always aware of. At the same time, making books on these subjects is my way of dealing with all the terrible things that are happening in the world. It’s my way of staying sane because there’s a lot of anger, a lot of anxiety about what’s going on. And I feel like confronting this directly is my preferred way of handling those feelings. So, it’s in a way therapeutic, even though it can be challenging. But I probably should find better ways of dealing with the emotional repercussions.

Lucie: The archival work, which you engage in at the moment, is quite unique within the Survivor-Centered Visual Narrative project. Is archival work also new to you? And what differences do you see between this kind of work and listening to survivors face to face?

Nora: I’ve done a lot of archival work. I did a lot of archival research for Belonging when I was looking for my grandparents’ files from the time of the Nazi regime. I went to the local archive in my father’s village and looked at the police documents from between 1933 and 1945. I looked at some of the letters that were written after 1945 by Jewish emigres who wanted to know what happened to their houses and their property. So, I’ve done a lot of research in archives, not academic research, but research to look for personal narratives. I love that. I find it so exciting to stumble across these voices that would otherwise remain unheard and then bring them back to life. One thing that I find a bit challenging is that the interviews I’m watching are with people who have already passed away, so I can’t ask follow-up questions. Sometimes I have very different questions than the ones that the interviewers ask. That’s a challenge that I’m experiencing because I’m not the one asking the questions.

Pages from Nora Krug’s ‘Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home’, 2018.

A lot of the questions that are asked in these interviews are about the chronology of what happened where they were born, how they experienced anti-Semitism as a child, when they had to flee or hide or what camp they were in, how they escaped or how they survived. All of that is very important. But I would also want to know more about the emotional aspects. What did they go through emotionally at various points during the process, not only what happened to them.

Lucie: When we communicated prior to this interview, you mentioned that one of the central questions you’re exploring is whether it is ever possible to overcome the trauma of war. Do you feel any closer to reaching an answer after working for several months in the archives?

Nora: No. I mean, it’s also so individual. Like I said earlier, I think that everybody deals with it very differently. Some people, as you know, committed suicide. Some people were deeply depressed. One woman whose interview I watched was very interesting. She talked about how after the war she had a child, her first son, and how detached she felt. She felt basically incapable of showing anybody love. And that capacity to love seemed to have died the moment when she was separated from her family in the ghetto, and that was a moment when she basically became incapable of loving or expressing her love for anybody. After the war, she had a son, and she realized that she couldn’t give him what a mother under normal circumstances could give a child.

Thank you so much for your time, Nora, and for sharing your research and artistic experience with me. We are very excited to have you as part of our project and I am looking forward to hearing more about your book later in spring.

The Ackerman Center Podcast: Interview with Dr. Charlotte Schallié

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In April 2024, SCVN co-director Dr. Charlotte Schallié met with Belofsky Fellow Katie Fisher for a conversation about the importance of arts-based research. Focusing on the publication ‘But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust’ this interview provides insight into the SCVN methodology which centres a collaborative approach to testimony. Charlotte and Katie also discuss the ways that graphic novels can be used to teach about the Holocaust, balancing the need to provide true information about survivor experiences while still providing a safe and supportive learning environment.

Find the full conversation here.

Listening time 44 minutes.

The Pivotal Role of Community Liaisons in Survivor-Centred Work

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On October 11, SCVN Media Director Raey Costain met with Ajnura Akbaš who is supporting the Yugoslav Wars Research Cluster as a community liaison. Ajnura works at the Muzej Ratnog Djetinjstva/War Childhood Museum in Sarajevo, an institution focused on the stories of children who have experienced wars and their enduring impact worldwide.

Ajnura spoke about her academic background and her work as a research coordinator for the War Childhood Museum, providing insight into how the museum works with survivors and their stories. As a firsthand witness to the SCVN research process as it has unfolded in the Yugoslav Wars Research Cluster, Ajnura was also able to share her perspective on visual methodologies, the importance of gathering in spaces where atrocities occurred, and what she has learned by working with survivors.

Ajnura has been supporting Almasa’s story with graphic artist Anneli Furmark and Research Cluster Co-Leads Sabine Rutar and Franziska Zaugg.

Raey: Thank you for meeting with me today. Can you give me a little bit of background on your role with the War Childhood Museum in connection to the work that you’re doing with Anneli and her recent trip to Sarajevo?

Ajnura: I work as a research coordinator at the War Childhood Museum. I’ve been with the Museum since 2019. I started working there just after getting my Master’s in history at Royal Holloway in London. My plan was to go back to Sarajevo and do a little bit of volunteering or an internship before starting my PhD. And then I just really fell in love with the mission of the museum and what they were doing. And so I started there on this very short term plan working with visitors, and then I basically never left after 2019.

My role changed a little bit over the years but what I do now is mostly coordinating research projects that the museum is conducting all around the world, documenting stories, objects, and oral history interviews with people who have experienced war childhood globally. So that’s the museum part.

I did eventually start my PhD, so I’m currently travelling between London and Sarajevo. I’m in my final year right now and I’m doing that at LSE in the Department of Gender Studies.

I started working with Anneli recently, and Almasa is our museum participant. She became part of the collection in, I think, 2020, and yeah, this last year we’ve started working with the SCVN team and Anneli, Franziska, and Sabine. We all met in person in Sarajevo last year. And so that was kind of the initial stage of us beginning to plan the project in terms of getting Anneli and Almasa together, having them get to know each other, and most of all for Almasa to start telling her story.

Raey: When you say Almasa became part of your collection, what does that mean?

Ajnura: It means that she donated her personal story to the museum. Her story, accompanied by the memory of an object, is part of our collection, and we have used it in our exhibitions and in our educational workshops. She also recorded an oral history interview for the museum, as part of a joint project between our museum and the Srebrenica Memorial Centre. We exhibit excerpts from those interviews in our permanent exhibition, but also sometimes in our traveling exhibitions as well.

Exterior of the War Childhood Museum. Image credit War Childhood Museum.

Raey: You mentioned that you were part of getting Anneli and Almasa together, can you expand on your specific role with the SCVN project?

Ajnura: So from the very beginning, our role was (when I say our I mean the museum, and I am acting on behalf of the War Childhood Museum), there was a role of liaison and research support. Almasa being our contributor and our collection participant, we already had very good relationships established with her and so we kind of made sure that Almasa had all the necessary information she needs about the SCVN project, about the methodology, and I think it’s really important that someone is there present who speaks the local language so that she feels more comfortable.

Last year, when Anneli and Franziska and Sabine came to Sarajevo, we made sure to go to Srebrenica with them, to introduce them to Almasa. I also coordinate meetings between Anneli and Almasa and have been doing that for about a year. They initially met in person and then continued online, I think we’ve had about seven or eight interviews so far over Zoom. And then on Anneli’s last visit to Sarajevo we worked with the film crew, coordinating everything regarding the trip in terms of getting the date set and accommodation and all the logistical things but also making sure that Almasa can communicate her boundaries to me and that I can then make sure that the team is aware of what we can or cannot ask or do, or what location Almasa feels the most comfortable recording in, or what the options are in terms of what’s possible with filming and so on.

So that’s the main part of what I’ve been doing with the project, making sure that Almasa as a survivor has the support she needs, and that she can check in with me about any kind of concerns she might have about the process or about the interviews themselves and that means I was there for her as a support. But we haven’t had any kind of issues with the team, and Anneli and Almasa, in particular, have been wonderful to work with.

That’s something I feel very privileged to have witnessed, is how their relationship developed over time. From that first meeting, when Anneli came to Srebrenica to this last meeting in person where you could really see how that relationship blossomed and now they’ve become really good friends in that time span.

Raey: You said that one of the things you were facilitating was ensuring that Almasa understands the SCVN methodology, creating the graphic novel and film. Are these kinds of methods something you were familiar with already?

Ajnura: I haven’t worked with the graphic novel method before, but I have worked with different kinds of visual methodologies and alternative archival methodologies through the museum. Our main method is childhood material culture, storytelling, and oral history but we have had a number of projects where the group of people we worked with was specific and we knew that we needed to adjust our methodology and offer an alternative language for people to communicate their life stories in a way that is not straightforward. We have experimented with embodied methodologies, with body mapping, with collages, with different kinds of artistic workshops and ways for people to express or illustrate their memories without having to sit in a studio and record a two hour long interview. And so I already had a kind of affinity, but also I guess a feeling of closeness, to alternative methodologies for documenting people’s life stories. And one thing I really appreciated, just from the position that I was in during this project, is witnessing Almasa’s reaction to the first drawings, seeing how important it is to her, and what it brings out of her. I think there is a value in these drawings being Anneli’s interpretation of Almasa’s words on the one hand, but also in Almasa to see their symbolic value, seeing a visual representation of her very, very earliest childhood memories of playing with her friends or of important moments in her story later on.

But it was really a special moment for me seeing her light up at some of those drawings.

Sketches by Anneli Furmark. Image credit Anneli Furmark.

Raey: That’s wonderful. I think one of the things that comes up a lot in talking about this project is that it really does depend on those relationships. And while we do, of course, have institutional relationships that help set those up, there’s no predicting if people are going to become friends or friendly or not. And so it sounds like you really had a close up view of that kind of research relationship unfolding in this project.

Ajnura: Yes, definitely, and we as a team, I feel that we were quite careful and cautious from the very beginning, in terms of whether Almasa would feel comfortable enough to share her story in full. This is not the first time for her to share her story. It was about whether we would be able to develop that level of trust between the two of them. I appreciate that the entire team were careful and that they wanted to respect the process of Almasa getting to know Anneli. And you can really see the difference in how Almasa narrates her story in the first interview and then in the last, because she feels more comfortable. It’s a kind of familiarity that comes with time.

And I also really appreciate how Anneli didn’t come into the project with preconceived notions of what she would hear. But she is hearing it all from Almasa and narrating it as such. And I think this work is really valuable. Especially from the perspective of the museum, because we work with war childhood history, it’s really important to see people whose stories are not normally included in histories and to have them writing themselves back in. And especially when it comes to the Bosnian war and the Srebrenica genocide, which is the topic of Almasa’s story, official stories are often about, you know, statistics and numbers, or they are about the militaries and politicians and journalists. They are rarely about children, who obviously had no say in whether the war would start or not but suffered multiple consequences of it. And so I think it’s really important that Almasa’s story is being documented, and that it will stay as important archival material.

Raey: You said that a big moment for this project was the team all coming together and meeting with Almasa. But you were also meeting in the place where the story unfolds. What do you see as the need or impact of gathering at the location where the story is set?

Ajnura: On the one hand, I think physical places, landscapes, those memorials that we visited, they hold stories as well. And especially for Almasa, who narrated part of her story that happened in that place, and she was speaking about the events while standing there, I think it encapsulates more than just Almasa’s personal story, but also the story of the place. That’s one part. But the other, of course, was that I think it adds another emotional element to the story because I know, having been there, it was a lot more emotionally laborious for Almasa to narrate some parts of the story while being there. And so I think there should be a recognition of that as well, that being in that physical space brings additional memories, and that we are triggered by our senses, by seeing things, touching things. So I think the value is in having those different kinds of historical materials added to the story, while at the same time not being the easiest task for the survivor, considering that it is the space where a lot of difficult things happened.

Raey: In terms of emotional labour, it can be very challenging to recount an experience, but it is also challenging to be on the other side of that conversation, to be somebody receiving that. Can you speak a little bit about how you take care of yourself? Or how the museum supports people who work there to care for themselves when engaging with these kinds of stories?

Ajnura: All museum staff who work with survivors are trained by psychologists to learn about techniques on how to protect ourselves, what kinds of practices we need to include in our daily lives, so that we can take care of our mental health. And we know to set some boundaries, even when it is difficult to do so.

I personally don’t really like talking about how it affects me, because I think it can never measure up to the emotional labour it takes for the participants to narrate or recall certain memories. I feel just incredibly privileged to be able to work at a museum where people entrust us with their memories and personal histories, but also with some of their most precious objects from their war childhoods.

What comes to mind when you ask that question is Almasa, because Almasa works at the Srebrenica Memorial Center in an area where she, as a child, survived genocide. And we’ve had some conversations about this, and I was really inspired by what she said. She said, and obviously we are aware of this as well, that you never really overcome trauma. You just learn how to live with it. And through her work at the memorial, through education, through advocacy, through different kinds of constructive ways of how to speak about the past, she’s able to reframe it so as to highlight positive aspects of it, or to imagine a possibility of a future in a place where atrocities happened. So I think there is an element of hope there, that being in those places, or working in or around those locations where atrocities happened, that you are reframing it through different kinds of activities you do there, and we hope to do that at the War Childhood Museum as well. But I think it’s even more relevant to what Almasa is doing at the Srebrenica Memorial.

Raey: Thank you for speaking on that. You mentioned that you’re finishing your PhD now. Do you plan on continuing with this kind of work after your degree?

Ajnura: My academic work has always been kind of inspired by the things I’m curious about. So through just my own research and experiences, and so on. And it has been kind of always tied to history and to Bosnia as a place where I grew up and the work at the museum really encapsulates all these elements that I really like about research. We are still very much embedded in the community. The museum is actually a place that exists to gather and to serve the community, so I never feel that I am out of touch with the world. You are always kind of embedded in it, but at the same time, there is this research side of things that allows me to develop methodologies, to meet other academics and researchers, to learn from them, or for me to teach them about what we do at the museum.

I would hope that in the next steps I continue working for the museum. We are still a relatively young institution. The museum opened in 2017, and there are a lot of things that we haven’t explored yet when it comes to the potentials of the work. A lot of interesting and bigger projects are yet to come. I’m just looking forward to being part of that, and hopefully advancing in my academic side of things as well.