Edited by Charlotte Schallié and Alexander Korb.
Arrested with her family in the Netherlands, deported by the Nazis to Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen, and orphaned – all by the age of seven – Emmie Arbel survived the camps, only to face a new ordeal of suffering in what should have been a place of refuge. Traumatized as a child by violence, abuse, and isolation, she has transformed her survival into an inspirational lifelong mission both to bear witness to the Holocaust, and to celebrate the enduring resilience of the human spirit.
Working closely with Emmie herself, the acclaimed German graphic artist Barbara Yelin has created an unforgettable “visual biography” of this remarkable woman: her rebellious independence, her indomitable humour, the wisdom of her contemplation.
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.
This graphic novel was developed as part of the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives Project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Barbara Yelin
Barbara Yelin was born in 1977 in Munich and studied illustration at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. She became known as a comic book artist in France for Le Visiteur and Le Retard. Her first publication in Germany was Gift, based on a script by Peer Meter. This story of a historical criminal case brought her to the attention of a larger audience in Germany. She has subsequently published a collection of her Riekes Notizen comic strips, which were originally printed in Germany in the daily newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau. Yelin was a co-publisher of the anthology Spring for many years and gives workshops around the world. She lives and works in Munich.
Alexander Korb
A German historian specialising in the Holocaust and genocide and Central and Eastern Europe, Dr Alexander Korb was a lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Leicester from 2010 until he became the Director of the Memorium Nuremberg Trials in June 2024. He provided the afterword for Barbara Yelin's Irmina (SelfMadeHero, 2016) and went on to co-edit another of her graphic novels: Emmie Arbel, The Colour of Memory (Reprodukt, 2023; SelfMadeHero, 2026).
Charlotte Schallié
Charlotte Schallié is a Professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Victoria and co-director of the SSRHC-funded Partnership Grant "Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives". As part of her work on centring the testimony of Holocaust survivors and witnesses, Dr Schallié edited the multi-award-winning But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust (New Jewish Press, 2022) and co-edited Emmie Arbel: The Colour of Memory (Reprodukt, 2023; SelfMadeHero, 2026).