Holocaust "comic book" to be tested at Hungarian schools

Beginning in March, a comic book about the Holocaust will be tested in 15 Hungarian schools, reports Népszabadság.

The Anna Frank House in Amsterdam and the Jewish Museum has been working on the comic book, entitled "In Search of the Truth," for a year and a half. The story is a family investigation by an elderly woman whose parents were killed at Auschwitz. She survived by hiding out on a farm, and has decided to return to find out what happened to her companions. She is accompanied by her curious grandson Daniel who finds Bob, the Auschwitz survivor, via the Internet. Meanwhile, her friend Helena digs out a photo album, the only memory of the old woman's parents.

As Julia Sarbo, program manager of the Anna Frank House told Népszabadság, the publishers are awaiting feedback on the comic book and are negotiating its publication in Hungary. They want to provide it for libraries for free, and to sell it in bookstores, as in Germany and Poland. She added that they had chosen the comic book genre in the hope that it would make teenagers more interested in the topic. The results exceeded their expectations, as one thousand Dutch students, otherwise not known for their interest in this era of history, rated it 8.5 on a scale of 1-10. Teachers also said they had never seen a classroom as silent as when the children were reading the book.

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