Being a part of the Narrative Art and Visual Storytelling: In Holocaust & Human Rights Education project has been a huge honour and a great pleasure for me. I participated as a Humanities student in Dr. Alex D’Arcy’s HUMA 180 course, which matched students with projects on campus. As a first year student at the University of Victoria, I never would have expected to be given the opportunity to work on one of UVic’s SSHRC-funded research projects.
This project originally interested me because of its artistic aspect—turning survivor’s testimonies into graphic novels is such a unique and creative way of preserving the reality of those experiences. Graphic novels create a much more immersive way to learn about the Holocaust than simply reading from a textbook, and it’s exciting that these resources will soon be used in classrooms all over the world.
I was given a chance to do a short, hands-on practicum with Dr. Matt Huculak, and over the course of three weeks, I learned so much! It was amazing to work on developing the podcast interview we conducted with Drs. Andrea Webb and Charlotte Schallié. Learning to record and edit a podcast in Audacity was more fun than I’d anticipated, as I’m not an overly tech-savvy person.
I am so grateful to have been a part of the team on this project and I can’t wait to see how it unfolds!
Link to Podcast (coming soon)
–Becky Turner, 2021