The Munich illustrator Barbara Yelin has told the life story of Emmie Arbel, who survived Nazi terror, in a graphic novel.
Emmie Arbel, born in The Hague in 1937, was deported by the Nazis with her Jewish family. Her parents die in concentration camps and she is sent to a foster family after the war. The supposedly safe home brings the girl new painful experiences. It was only decades later that Emmie Arbel was able to talk about her experiences. In countless conversations in Israel, where she has lived since 1949, and in Germany, she tells Barbara Yelin about her life. In her graphic novel “Emmie Arbel. The Color of Memory” (Reprodukt), the Munich-based illustrator has found a careful, yet impressive visual language for Arbel’s memories. Her encounter with Arbel was initiated and accompanied by the Canadian project “Narrative Art & Visual Storytelling in Genocide & Human Rights Education”. The war in Israel and Gaza makes the book frighteningly topical and brings back existential fears.