ABINGTON, Pa. — The graphic narrative may seem like an unconventional format to explore the savagery of Nazi Germany, but melding text, sketches and reality makes perfect sense to Emily Steinberg. The lecturer in art at Penn State Abington employs the graphic art form to share personal stories, as previously seen in her acclaimed graphic novel “Broken Eggs,” that shared the despair she endured as an infertility patient.
Steinberg's latest narrative is “Berlin Story: Time, Memory, Place,” featured in Cleaver Magazine. The 19 haunting, heavily inked panels crammed with printed text were dually inspired by childhood memories of her Holocaust education in Hebrew school and a recent visit to Berlin for an exhibition featuring "Broken Eggs.”
The narrative depicts the site of the Wannsee conference, where Nazi leaders wined and dined in a neoclassical-style villa while unveiling the extermination policy for Europe's Jewish population. In reference to the Nazis hope to erase the Jewish population from the entire continent, Steinberg’s illustrations are lacking any trace of human life.