Barbara Yelin

Arrested with her family in her native Holland, deported, held in a series of Nazi concentration camps, and orphaned – all by the age of seven – Emmie Arbel transformed her childhood survival into a lifelong mission to stand against any such other horrors. With her home now in Israel, to where she and her brother emigrated with their foster-parents in the wake of the Holocaust, she still frequently travels abroad to report and record her testimony. Working closely with Emmie herself, the acclaimed German graphic artist Barbara Yelin has created a brilliant portrait – what she calls a “visual biography” – of this remarkable woman: her rebellious spirit, her resilient humour, the seriousness of her contemplation. “Surviving is not over,” Emmie reflects. “Surviving is every day.” Emmie Arbel: The Colour of Memory is at once a haunting portrayal of a historical atrocity; an inspiring account of a modern friendship; a beautiful work of art; and a meditation on memory itself. Because, as Barbara Yelin has put it, “The long arms of history wrap right around the present.”

In the mid-1930s, lrmina, an ambitious young German, moves to London. At a cocktail party, she meets Howard Green, one of the first Black students at Oxford, who, like lrmina, is working towards an independent existence. However, their relationship comes to an abrupt end when lrmina, constrained by the political situation in Hitler's Germany, is forced to return home. As war approaches and her contact with Howard is broken, it becomes clear to lrmina that prosperity will only be possible through the betrayal of her ideals. In the award-winning Irmina, Barbara Yelin presents a troubling drama about the tension between integrity and social advancement. Based on a true story, this moving and perceptive graphic novel perfectly conjures the oppressive atmosphere of wartime Germany, reflecting on the complicity that results from the choice, conscious or otherwise, to look away.