Who Will Draw Our History?

Between 1944 and 1949, scores of survivors created graphic narratives of their personal and collective experiences under Nazi persecution. Who Will Draw Our History? introduces ten Jewish women who survived Majdanek, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ravensbrück, and outside the Warsaw ghetto under “Aryan” papers and then, days after their liberation, began recording their memories in images and words. Lacking photographs of what they witnessed and endured, they turned to visual storytelling to represent Jewish suffering during the Holocaust, particularly as it affected women.

This exhibition showcases their little-known “books of memories”: wordless novels, handmade albums, pictorial diaries, illustrated books and portfolios. Culled from private collections and museum archives around the world, these works contribute vital evidentiary material about the Holocaust, but they also reveal how the “return to life” was experienced and represented. In so doing, they radically transform how we understand the role and reach of art in early survivor publications, exhibitions, and community building.

Arriving at a crucial moment, as we near an age “after testimony,” Who Will Draw Our History? brings together these works of early Holocaust memory for the first time, placing them within their historical and cultural context.