Visualizing Transgenerational Memories of the Holocaust in <i>Never Again Will I Visit Auschwitz</i>: An Interview with Ari Richter

Abstract This interview with Ari Richter, a New York-based Jewish American visual artist whose debut work in the comics medium is his Holocaust graphic narrative Never Again Will I Visit Auschwitz: A Graphic Family Memoir of Trauma Inheritance (2024), discusses the creation process behind this graphic narrative. The work is part memoir, part historic retelling, part self-reflexive work, and part travelogue (recounting the artist’s trips to various locations in Germany and to Auschwitz-Birkenau). The interview highlights how the memories of Richter’s family members encompass a diverse tapestry of Jewish experiences during the Holocaust and in the aftermath of World War II. These include the following: grappling with the death of other family members and how that triggers a desperate sense of helplessness and guilt; experiencing victimhood, living under constant threat in anti-Semitic neighborhoods, and being targeted for physical and psychological abuse or internment in camps; employing often “impure” strategies of resistance and escape through which they arrived in America; becoming soldiers in the US army, returning to Germany toward the war’s end and inverting power dynamics with Nazi perpetrators; and living and speaking as Holocaust survivors in America. The various experiences and personalities of Richter’s relatives allow him to create a remarkably multi-layered family graphic memoir, triggering reflection on the resurgence of anti-Semitism, the harrowing effects of racism and oppression, the precarious position of migrants, the fragility of democracy, and the importance of continuing to fight for social justice.