The Holocaust, an unprecedented event in history, holds a special place in contemporary memory. By nature, an event is something that can be written about in newspapers, history books or novels. The genocide of Europe’s Jews is no exception. Comic book authors gingerly tiptoed around the topic, sometimes stumbling, other times producing brilliant work. This historical and artistic exhibition on what is sometimes called the “ninth art” focuses on those depictions’ visual sources, relevance, reach and limits (humor and satire). It made sense for the Shoah Memorial to feature this popular art form in all its diversity, from comic books to graphic novels and mangas.

How, and since when, have comic book artists turned their attention to the Holocaust? How is testimony communicated? How realistically is the horror depicted? What are the themes, motifs and symbols? How are they presently changing in keeping with the political, social and aesthetic references of our time, when a form of anti-Semitism persists? How have comic books depicted the Holocaust, such as Calvo’s La Bête est Morte!, which already featured the theme in 1944? Nearly 75 years later, some points in common, almost a grammar, emerge from these narratives and depictions. This exhibition will try to assess them for the first time. Over 200 original documents will be on display, from Mickey au camp de Gurs, Superman to L’Oncle Paul, Master race, Unknown Soldier, Maus, L’Histoire des 3 Adolf, Déogratias, Deuxième Génération, and many other major pieces.

Specialized curators:
Didier Pasamonik is a publisher, journalist and curator specializing in comics.
Joël Kotek is a professor at the Free University of Brussels and teaches at Sciences Po Paris.
General curator: Marie-Édith Agostini, the Shoah Memorial.

The Shoah Memorial
17, rue Geoffroy-l’Asnier, Paris 4- 0033-1 42 77 44 72
Open every day except Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Thursdays until 10 p.m.
Free admission
Metro Saint-Paul or Hôtel-de-Ville
www.memorialdelashoah.org
facebook.com/MemorialShoah/
instagram.com/memorialshoahofficiel/ twitter.com/Shoah_Memorial #ExpoShoahBD

The exhibition catalogue, co-published by Mémorial de la Shoah / Denoël Graphic, will be available from January 15, 2017.

Press Contact
ASC/Sylvie Chabroux
06 64 25 48 42
sylvie@chabroux.com

The Shoah Memorial
Europe’s biggest Holocaust archive, the Shoah Memorial is a place of remembrance, education and transmission of the history of the genocide of the Jews during the Second World War. The Memorial hosts permanent exhibitions at both of its sites: in Paris, in the heart of the historic Marais quarter, and Drancy, opposite the Cité de la Muette, the former internment camp from which most of France’s Jews were deported. At the Paris site, the Memorial hosts two temporary exhibitions a year plus a wide range of activities to help young people and adults better understand this bleak chapter in French and European history and pass it on to future generations.