But I Live
Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust
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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.
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Reviews
"The superb, heart-rending book But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust collects the testimonies of four survivors in a graphic narrative format for new generations. It is a powerful and indispensable educational tool not just for high school students, for whom it was designed, but for anyone. Readers can now carry these indelible stories forward."
"I'm convinced that we need more books like this, so that we can preserve a terrible history in a way that makes it easily accessible on the one hand, but also allows a different, very personal access to the stories on the other. I think that this book belongs with Maus in every bookcase."
"The graphic narratives in But I Live are powerful and relate the Holocaust stories in profound and intense ways that words alone cannot. Created for middle readers, this book is suitable for adults too."
"Last week I was given a gift of sadness, a gift of violence, fear, tragedy and suffering...But it was also a gift of courage, extraordinary determination, unimaginable resilience, and ultimately triumph...The gift came in the form of a recently published collection of three graphic novellas called But I Live. It is a remarkable achievement bringing together four survivors with three writer/illustrators who help portray the harrowing journey of the survivors' young lives."
"The combination of stories and artwork is powerful and chilling."
"Who should read this book? Young adults, for sure. But also teachers. Makers of memorials and exhibitions. Historians, literary and art scholars, everyone."
"But I Live is a uniquely conceived and structured work that explores new possibilities for Holocaust representation at a moment in history that will see the end of direct survivor testimony. It is distinguished by its multigenre, polyphonic layering of perspectives and forms of representation, organizing a deeply engaging dialogue among survivors, graphic artists, and scholars, who, in concert, arouse, mediate, and reckon with the traumatic past."
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