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Shortlisted - 2023 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards for Best Reality-Based Work
An intimate co-creation of three graphic novelists and four Holocaust survivors,
But I Live consists of three illustrated stories based on the experiences of each survivor during and after the Holocaust.
David Schaffer and his family survived in Romania due to their refusal to obey Nazi collaborators. In the Netherlands, brothers Nico and Rolf Kamp were separated from their parents and hidden by the Dutch resistance in thirteen different places. Through the story of Emmie Arbel, a child survivor of the Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, we see the lifelong trauma inflicted by the Holocaust.
To complement these hauntingly beautiful and unforgettable visual stories,
But I Live includes historical essays, an illustrated postscript from the artists, and personal words from each of the survivors.
As we urgently approach the post-witness era without living survivors of the Holocaust, these illustrated stories act as a physical embodiment of memory and help to create a new archive for future readers. By turning these testimonies into graphic novels,
But I Live aims to teach new generations about racism, antisemitism, human rights, and social justice.
List of contents
Preface
Bernice Eisenstein
The Stories
"A Kind of Resistance"
Miriam Libicki and David Schaffer
"Thirteen Secrets"
Gilad Seliktar, Nico Kamp, and Rolf Kamp
"But I Live"
Barbara Yelin and Emmie Arbel
The Histories
The Holocaust in Transnistria
Alexander Korb
Surviving in Hiding from the Nazis
Dienke Hondius
Surviving Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen as a Child
Andrea Löw
In Their Own Words
David Schaffer
Nico Kamp
Rolf Kamp
Emmie Arbel
Behind the Art
Miriam Libicki, Gilad Seliktar, and Barbara Yelin
Afterword
Charlotte Schallié, Matt Huculak, Ilona Shulman Spaar, and Jan Erik Dubbelman
Acknowledgments
Biographies
About the author
Charlotte Schallié is a professor and chair in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Victoria.
Barbara Yelin studied illustration at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. In 2014, Yelin published the award-winning graphic novel
Irmina.
Gilad Seliktar is an acclaimed graphic novelist and children's book illustrator.
Miriam Libicki holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is an award-winning graphic novelist.
Summary
In this powerful book, three graphic novelists tell the stories of Holocaust survivors, bringing their testimonies to life and seamlessly connecting the past with the present.
