Holocaust
In the fall of 2024, Nora Krug started her collaboration with the SCVN project while also taking up her artist residency at Yale’s Fortunoff Video Archive. An internationally acclaimed German-born author and illustrator, Nora has published several book-length visual narratives focusing on history, war, and memory. During her year-long residency at Yale, she conducted research of the survivors’ video, audio, and written testimonies. With the support of the SCVN project, she started working on a graphic novel based on her engagement with these archival sources.
The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Photo courtesy of Stephen Naron and Nick Porter.
Archival testimonies
Drawing on the archival resources, Nora watched and listened to survivors’ testimonies looking for universally shared themes on the subject of war and what it means to live with the trauma of war. Reflecting upon the main motivation behind her work, she says: “One of the central questions I’m exploring is whether it is ever possible to overcome the trauma of war.” In her new book project, she plans to “explore the universal, human themes such as resistance, forgiveness and retaliation across cultures, religions, and genocides.” Her residency at Yale gave her a unique opportunity to connect with professors from different departments—including the Visual Arts Library, the Beinecke Library, and the Psychiatry Department—to get diverse expert perspectives on these questions.
Top left: Cassette tape with recorded testimony.
Top right: VHS tape with recorded testimony.
Right: VHS tapes preserved at the Fortunoff Archives.
All photos courtesy of Stephen Naron and Nick Porter.
"Revenge"
While at Yale, Nora envisioned expanding her research to other crimes, other wars, other cultures, and other religions, so that the subject of the coming book would not entirely focus on the Holocaust, but also on how we deal with the experience of war conflict and suffering more universally. She is now continuing her work on this graphic novel project as a Charles Heimoff Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin starting in the fall 2025.
Tentatively titled “Revenge”, Nora’s upcoming book is conceived as a collection of visual biographies and philosophical reflections based on archival research and interviews with people from different cultures on the subject of revenge and war. The book will explore revenge from multiple perspectives: symbolic vs. enacted, impulsive vs. an act of duty, and as a natural part of the transition from war to peace. It will raise questions relevant to today’s geopolitical climate: Can revenge be justified? Is forgiveness truly possible? Can we ever overcome the trauma of the past and move toward a more peaceful future?