No Jokes This in this Post!

Thanks to Byron Kerman for forwarding me CNN's video coverage of international reaction to a new graphic novel about the Holocaust. Although German schools already make a big effort to give pupils a thorough education about the Nazi era, racist violence remains a problem, and the revival of Germany's Jewish community has brought a rise in anti-Semitism. Berlin officials are now turning to the comics medium to teach German youth about the Holocaust.

The graphic novel Die Suche (The Search) was recently introduced
on the 75th anniversary of Adolph Hitler's ascension to the German chancellory. The 61-page book, already available in various European languages, will be used alongside worksheets in history classes at secondary schools in Berlin for six months, after which the project hopes to go nationwide. But the well-intentioned endeavor is hampered by two problems: apathetic German teens, tired of being reminded of their forefathers' sins; and those outraged by the indignity of Holocaust atrocities appearing in the funny pages.

I'm sure we're all asking ourselves the same question: why didn't art spiegelman's Maus raise this kind of stink when it came out? It got a Pulitzer Prize instead.

The graphic novel, drawn by artist Eric Heuvel and distributed by the Anne Frank House museum, conveys the essential facts about the Holocaust through the story of the fictitious Jewish Hecht and Canter families through a surviving narrator, Esther. Historians collaborated on the project to ensure accuracy and many of the drawings were inspired by historical photographs. 

The Anne Frank museum found that using comic books as teaching tools was not uncommon in the classroom. "There was no initial scepticism about the comic-book format for this purpose," spokeswoman Julia Franz said. "In fact, it turned out that many teachers we spoke to had already used Astérix in their history lessons."

I had always been led to believe that Europeans were very progressive when it came to recognizing comics as a valid art form, much
less a means of communication. Obviously the subject of the Holocaust is a tender one, but the backlash comes as a genuine surprise. It's still words and pictures, so why has illustration become the bastard stepchild of photography? Naysayers must feel the vérité of the topic is diminished, but that is a point of view I cannot share.

Kudos to the Anne Frank museum for their efforts; be sure to check out their website for an interview with the creators about the book, as well as information on their other graphic novel about World War II, A Family Secret.

-AJ