Graphic Novel as Educational Concept in Teaching About the Holocaust

During this workshop Miško will introduce you to Ester.

Ester is a collection of novels and a teaching material about the Holocaust. Ester’s most distinctive and important feature is a series of dramatized and illustrated novels about the Jewish victims killed in the Concentration Camp Judenlager Semlin at the Belgrade Fairground (Staro Sajmište) in the beginning of 1942. 

These graphic novels are specifically developed to serve as a tool for teaching and learning about the Holocaust. They focus on young victims and their families, their pre-war lives, as well as under the German occupation and during the Holocaust. The novels are based on true historical events and the people who experienced them. Esther graphic novels are reconstructions and dramatizations of history based on available fragments of personal stories. Historical events and facts are central, whilst the main focus is simultaneously placed on the human experience, feelings and thoughts of the main characters. 

Created primarily for 12-13- and 16-18-year-old students, the novels can be enjoyed by anyone who is interested in learning history through the means of a graphic novel.  

Ester is created by Miško Stanišić and his team at Terraforming – a Serbian NGO which develops educational methodologies and teaching materials, combining best practices in contemporary pedagogy with new-media technologies while facilitating multidisciplinary cross-sectoral international project cooperation and exchange. 

In this interactive workshop Miško will show you how you can use Ester in your own classroom.