INTERVIEW: Dr. Rafael Medoff Discusses How Comics Can Teach Readers About Racism And The Holocaust

Dr. Rafael Medoff, founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, has penned more than 20 books relating to the Holocaust, antisemitism, and Jewish history. Some people might be surprised that one of his latest books is in the form of a graphic novel, but for Medoff, it makes perfect sense. He grew up reading comics, understands the power comics can have, and he is interested in innovative ways to teach history. 

His latest books, Cartoonists Against Racism: The Secret Jewish War on Bigotry (with Craig Yoe) and Whistleblowers: Four Who Fought to Expose the Holocaust to America (with Dean Motter) can be used as companion books in classrooms. Cartoonists Against Racism spotlights a campaign by cartoonists and comic book artists against racism in the 1940s and 1950s, while Whistleblowers uses comics Medoff wrote himself to share the true stories of four men who blew the whistle on the Nazi genocide or on attempts to obstruct the rescue of Jews from the Nazis. How To Love Comics spoke to Dr. Medoff about his new books, how comics can be used to teach serious subjects, and how he did his research. 

You’re a scholar who has turned to comics to teach people about the Holocaust. Why do you think comics are effective in this?

My perspective as a Holocaust educator is that what you say matters more than how you say it. So as far as I’m concerned, any method that can be used to talk about the Holocaust and the lessons to be learned from it is valid. When the first graphic novel about the Holocaust, Art Spiegelman’s Maus first came out, it was the subject of some controversy, because people were not yet used to seeing a subject such as the Holocaust presented in comic book storytelling form. But things have changed since then. That was the 1980s; today, graphic novels are part of the mainstream culture. For Holocaust educators, it opens up a brand new way to talk about subjects which are often difficult to approach. 

Educators around the world are always looking for new texts. Educational materials that have a visual element are particularly effective when teaching teenagers and college students. My new nonfiction graphic novel, Whistleblowers, is my contribution to the field.

So how can comics, in particular your new books, be used in the classrooms for history lessons in addition to reading lessons?

My colleagues and I use comic books, editorial cartoons, and animation as means of Holocaust education. Each of these methods can be effective, depending on a particular classroom. At the end of the day, it’s up to each individual teacher to decide which approach will be the most effective with his or her students. So, for example, we have a traveling exhibit of editorial cartoons that appeared in American newspapers in the 1930s and 1940s, which focused on the persecution of the Jews in Europe. Those one-panel editorial cartoons can be very effective. On the other hand, for many students, Whistleblowers offers a way for students to really dive into the material and to get a better grasp of events in the 1930s or 1940s. Animation is another powerful tool. Neal Adams and I did a project for Disney’s educational division some years ago—we created six animated shorts focusing on Americans who spoke out against the Holocaust. Each of these animated shorts presented a different aspect of America’s response to the Nazi genocide. It was a dynamic way to which many students will relate more effectively than if they were simply reading ordinary text.

Graphic storytelling has long been a way for people to express bigger issues. Did you grow up reading comics?

Yes, I was a comics fan as an adolescent in the 1970s. At the time there really was no such thing as a graphic novel in the sense that we know today. There were a few early pioneers such as Gil Kane’s Blackmark and of course Will Eisner’s work. But the way the graphic novel industry exploded in recent years is really extraordinary. So, I’m reaching back to my own roots as a comic book fan. It’s a fascinating experience as a historian to be doing research and writing in an area that was once considered kids’ literature. For me, on a personal and professional level, it’s thrilling to collaborate with artists, writers, and editors whom I admired, as a teenager, for their comics work. I had the opportunity, to collaborate with Neal Adams on that Disney animation project, as well as with Stan Lee, who narrated some of those episodes. In the case of Whistleblowers, it’s a collaboration with the award-winning comics artist Dean Motter. In the case of my other latest book, Cartoonists Against Racism, I’m able to collaborate with the renowned comics historian, author, and artist Craig Yoe. 

How did you do your research for the Cartoonists Against Racism book, and why do you think it’s especially important for people to be learning about that aspect now?

The project to use comics and cartoons to fight racism in the 1940s and 1950s was initiated by a prominent Jewish organization, the American Jewish Committee. However, the committee kept its role behind the scenes. As a result, this entire story — this fascinating battle in which a Jewish organization enlisted cartoonists and comic book artists — was unknown to historians. Craig Yoe and I were alerted to this remarkable episode by Charlotte Bonelli, who is the chief librarian at the American Jewish Committee. She came across the documents in the archives of her organization and wondered why this important story had never been told. So it was my honor, together with Craig Yoe, to take those documents, cartoons, and comic book stories out of the dusty archives and bring them to life. This remarkable story is part of the civil rights struggle, it’s part of American Jewish history, and it’s also a very important chapter in the history of comics and cartooning.

Do you know what sort of impact it had at the time?

The American Jewish Committee enlisted a veteran advertising executive, Richard Rothschild, to manage this campaign, which went on for about fifteen years. Many years later, Rothschild wrote a short reminiscence in which he looked back and tried to assess the impact of creating all these anti-racist editorial cartoons for newspapers, anti-racist posters for labor union halls, and anti-racist comic book stories for mainstream comics. He was convinced that the campaign had a significant impact on American public’s attitudes. 

As a historian, I’m cautious about measuring its impact. There’s no doubt it had some effect. Rothschild and his colleagues, the cartoonists whom he enlisted, created literally millions of pieces of literature. The comic book stories that they created were published in major comic books that were read by enormous audiences. They also created one-page public service announcements promoting racial tolerance that used prominent superheroes such as Superman, Batman, and others in one-page comic strips. The curriculum materials that they created for classrooms were used by teachers nationwide and were seen by members of labor unions every time they had meetings in their union halls. The editorial cartoons that Rothschild’s team created and placed in major American newspapers were read by very significant audiences. So when you undertake a campaign on that scale, it must have had some impact. It’s a fascinating example of how important ideas can be conveyed even through unexpected media.

How did you decide which whistleblowers to include in your Whistleblowers book?

Whistleblowers: Four Who Exposed the Holocaust to America came out earlier this year, almost as a kind of companion volume to Cartoonists Against Racism. In Whistleblowers I step out from the role of historian and into the role of comics creator. Here I drew on my previous research on aspects of how America responded to the Holocaust and, in collaboration with Dean Motter, turned them into comic book stories. In each case, we were looking for someone in Holocaust history who could be seen as a moral role model, who could serve as a moral exemplar for today’s generation. Remember, most of Holocaust education naturally focuses on the perpetrators — the Germans and their collaborators — and the victims, the Jews. But there is another side to the Holocaust—the minority of people in countries around the world who did speak out, who tried to convince their governments to admit refugees, or who protested, or wrote articles in newspapers calling for rescue of the Jews. Much of my research as a historian is focused on those people, the ones who did speak out, the ones who were willing to march with picket signs or willing to yell, to cry out against the Nazi genocide. For Whistleblowers, we chose four unique stories that focused on four unique individuals who each spoke out, but in a different way. We begin with the story of a journalist and future US Senator, Alan Cranston. While reporting from Germany in the 1930s, Cranston became familiar with Hitler’s infamous book Mein Kampf, his manifesto of antisemitism, racial supremacy, and military expansionism. When Cranston returned to the United States in 1939, he was shocked to discover that the English language edition of Mein Kampf which was being marketed in the United States had been sanitized. All the most extreme, violent and awful parts of the book were removed in order to “sell” Hitler to the American public. Cranston responded by creating his own version of Mein Kampf, in which he put back in all the things that had been removed in order to make Hitler seem more reasonable. The first story in Whistleblowers recounts the dramatic courtroom battle that ensued when Hitler sued Cranston for copyright infringement. It was the only time Hitler or his representatives challenged someone in an American court.

Another chapter in Whistleblowers is about a Polish Catholic underground courier named Jan Karski. He was smuggled into a Nazi concentration camp and also into the Warsaw Ghetto so that he could see the atrocities against the Jews firsthand and then report what he had seen to government leaders in Great Britain and the United States. He actually had a face-to-face meeting with President Franklin Roosevelt in the Oval Office in 1943 to explain what he had witnessed. 

We also have a unique story in Whistleblowers which does not involve a whistleblower per se, but his story is a prequel to a later chapter. This chapter involves Henry Morgenthau Jr., who was the only Jewish member of President Roosevelt’s cabinet. Many of us are familiar with the Jewish refugee ship the St. Louis, which tried to bring 930 German Jews from Nazism to the United States in 1939, but was turned away. Several years ago, my colleagues and I at the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies were approached by the family of one of the survivors of that voyage. They told us that they had a diary he had kept while a passenger on the St. Louis, which had never before been revealed or published. Until this point, there was only one known surviving diary by someone on the St. Louis. Now the family of the late Arthur Weil came forward to show us the diary that their grandfather had kept. Weil had survived because a small number of the passengers on the St. Louis ended up going to England, and since England was never invaded by the Germans, they survived. Weil was one of those lucky few and his diary, written in German, had never been seen before. The family approached us because they knew about our previous work in creating educational comic books and comic strips about the Holocaust, and they wanted their grandfather’s story to be told in a medium that would reach large numbers of young people. They were concerned that if it was published simply as an ordinary textbook, it might not have the same impact as if it were to be presented in a visual form. The diary was translated into English and, together with Dean Motter, I created a new telling of the story of the voyage of the St. Louis, through the eyes of Arthur Weil. Most of the narration in the comic strip consists of direct excerpts from the diary. I didn’t want it to be just me telling the story at the St. Louis; rather I wanted it to be told through Arthur Weil’s actual words, his reflections as he was on that ship; and as the ship was hovering off the coast of Florida, begging President Roosevelt to grant them haven; and then being turned away. I wanted his first-person experience to come through with the aid of Dean Motter’s very striking artwork. So it’s a unique kind of a comic book story because it is told through the diary and yet with all the power and drama of the actual historical tragedy.

You said Cartoonists Against Racism and Whistleblowers are kind of like companions; they complement each other. Do you envision them being used together in classrooms?

A team of educators has created a teacher’s guide for each of the volumes. They provided teachers with ready-made lesson plans and very specific guidance on how these books can be used effectively in classrooms. I want to emphasize that Whistleblowers and Cartoonists Against Racism are not aimed specifically at students; they’re written at the adult level. But we think they are very effective tools for teaching high school and college students. Many teachers who have been using them have told us that they find them very useful and effective. Neither of the books require extensive knowledge about the Holocaust or about comics and cartoon history in order to appreciate the information. My colleagues and I have spoken at many comics conventions this year, and also to schools and other institutions, and the reception has been enthusiastic.

The teacher’s guides are available free of charge, in PDF form, by contacting the publisher — Dark Horse / Yoe Books.

Why is it so important for people to learn about the Holocaust?

As a historian, I’m interested in the Holocaust not merely because it’s a fascinating chapter in history, but because I want to help make sure that the next generation learns lessons from the 1930s and 1940s so that those horrors will not be repeated. Tragically, the Holocaust was not the last genocide; the recent decades have seen genocide in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, and other horrific atrocities around the world. When we look back at how Hitler was able to expand his territory, and then how he was able to murder millions of Jews with very little opposition from the Free World, we can see the kinds of mistakes that were made. Hopefully today’s leaders and tomorrow’s leaders — by studying what happened then — will learn how not to repeat those mistakes. The late David S. Wyman, after whom our institute is named, was the author of the definitive history of America’s response to the Holocaust, called The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941 to 1945. It remains the gold standard in our field. It’s a story of abandonment — and the need to learn from it. 

I contend that all human beings have a moral obligation to try to help when innocent people are being harmed anywhere in the world. I hope Whistleblowers will help inspire that kind of sentiment in the years to come and I hope Cartoonists Against Racism, for its part, will inspire us to look at creative and innovative ways to combat bigotry and to promote tolerance even through such unexpected media as cartoons, comic books, and animation.

Is there anything else you want people to know?

Cartoonists Against Racism showcases a really interesting variety of artists. There are Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonists, like Vaughn Shoemaker and Bill Mauldin; there are lesser known figures; there are famous comic book artists from the Golden Age, such as Mac Raboy. But all of them, each in their own unique way, came together to advance this important cause. Richard Rothschild and the American Jewish Committee were an extraordinary creative force. Their team looked for new and unusual ways to promote their message against antisemitism, against racism, against all forms of bigotry. They even helped persuade the producers of the very popular Superman radio show to run a 16-part series in which Superman battled the Ku Klux Klan. And that was a very important way of bringing their anti-racism message into the broader popular culture. 

There are different strategies for combating antisemitism. There are those who argue that the fight against antisemitism should focus only on antisemitism and not other forms of racism. And there are those at the other end of the spectrum who would argue that the fight against antisemitism should be subsumed within a universal struggle against all racism. The American Jewish Committee and Richard Rothschild chose a middle path. Readers will see in Cartoonists Against Racism that in many of these posters and cartoons, they attack antisemitism by name but also at the same time attack prejudice against African Americans or against Catholic Americans or other religious or ethnic groups. So this was a specific strategy which they believed could discredit antisemitism not by hiding the Jewish element, not by melting it into broader struggles, but by making it part of the struggle for a more tolerant society. I hope that Craig Yoe and Dean Motter and I have succeeding contributing to that struggle at least in some small way through both Whistleblowers and Cartoonists Against Racism.

Cartoonists Against Racism: The Secret Jewish War on Bigotry and Whistleblowers: Four Who Fought to Expose the Holocaust to America are both published by Dark Horse Comics and can be found at all good comic book shops, bookstores, online retailers, and Amazon.