Ester (or “Естер” in Serbian Cyrillic) is the Serbian variant of the name Esther.
THE ARCHIVISTS AND THE FORGOTTEN BOXES
available in English
A STORY ABOUT THE RED RACE CAR
available in English
THE FAMILY PHOTO
OVERVIEW in English
THE RUNNING SHOES
OVERVIEW in English
– Have you seen my father’s family? – asked Aunt-Zora breathless.
– No, we haven’t, Zora, but I’m sure they are somewhere here. – answered the mother.
– Aunt-Zora, Aunt-Zora, – Aleksandar pulled her sleeve – do you know my classmate Bogdan Živković? Your neighbours the Živkovićs? Will you inform them, please, that we are sent to the concentration camp! –
– I will, my darling! – Aunt-Zora answered, bent down quickly and kissed Aleksandar’s forehead loudly, and Selma’s cheek, and then disappeared in the crowd shouting: “The Hercogs, the Hercogs.“
The graphic novel A Story About Тhe Red Race Car is a dramatised story about the Frelih family from pre-war Belgrade, based on true events, real people, historical documentation and testimonies. As it is case with other stories in the “Ester” series, historians and other experts participated in creating the novel in order to ensure its historical accuracy.
Aleksandar Frelih is eleven-year old Jewish boy from Belgrade. As we follow Aleksandar and his family through twelve illustrated scenes, we will find out more about their life, the Jewish culture and tradition, and about the pre-war Belgrade and Serbia in general. When the war brought anti-Jewish measures, repression, and death, the Frelih family shared the same destiny as thousands of other Jews from Serbia.
Above all A Story about the Red Race Car is a human story about friendship in the times of suffering told from the perspective of a young Jewish boy.
Free download
PPT version for a big screen
PDF version for print
Scenes and tasks overview
Maps (location guide)
Teaching at authentic locations
Graphic novels
Time and date of each scene
Exact location of each scene
Historical photographs
Historical documents
Exciting investigative tasks
Ester graphic novels are a teaching material, its most important part being a series of dramatized stories about the Jewish victims killed in the Jewish Camp at Sajmište in Belgrade (Judenlager Semlin) in the beginning of 1942. The stories focus on young victims and their families, their pre-war life, the life under the German occupation and during the Holocaust. They are based on the true historical events and characters.
Ester was produced by an international team consisting of expert historians, teachers, experts for the Jewish culture and tradition, Holocaust survivors, as well as a group of illustrators from Serbia and the Netherlands were working together on its materialization.
Ester graphic novels were created as a reconstruction and dramatization of history based on available fragments of personal stories, having in mind a certain target and age group: 14-18 years old students of higher grades of the elementary school and the secondary school students in Serbia (and elsewhere). Taking this approach, while keeping historical events and facts as central in the stories, we put the main focus on human aspects, feelings and thoughts of the main characters, with aim to engage students on a different level, thus creating a creative and engaging tool for teaching and learning about the Holocaust.
Belgrade fair before the Second World War (left) will become concentration camp Judenlager Semlin
Miško Stanišić, director of Terraforming
At the time when it was built in 1937, it was a place where Serbia (being a part of Kingdom of Yugoslavia then) was to become a part of the modern Europe. But instead of being a road leading to the bright future, the Fairgrounds would soon become a place where people were going to face terrible suffering and death.
To research, teach and learn about, and remember the Holocaust is very important, not only because it is a civilizational, moral and human duty, but also because by learning about the life and history we share with Jews we also learn about ourselves and our own history which helps us to understand it better.
Illustrations from the graphic novel “The Running Shoes”
Aleksandar Todosijević, history teacher and author
Students aged 12-18 are not equipped with enough experience and knowledge to “read”, that is to say, interpret various historical sources such as historical documents, photographs, video and audio recordings unaided. Many teachers are not willing to use visual historical sources in the teaching process, rarely critically analysing them with students as they do with the written texts. Teaching materials based on the language of graphic novels are insufficiently used as a history teaching method in the Republic of Serbia. Series “Ester” is an attempt to enable teachers to implement some quality teaching materials based on the language of graphic novels in the process of teaching history.
It must be pointed out clearly that graphic novels, being a type of visual teaching materials, do not represent historical sources; but it is also important to underline that they are created according to the studies of relevant historical sources. Their main purpose is to shed light on certain historical events, which are not documented by photographs or video recordings, but are reconstructed in accordance with documents and other relevant historical sources. Consequently, in order to help illustrators to reconstruct historical events, places and characters, expert historians, archivists, and educators from Serbia, Germany, Austria and Netherlands took part in the process of creation of this material, ensuring historical accuracy as much as possible.
Ester is developed with the support of the OSCE/ODIHR project
”Words into Action to Combat Antisemitism”.
ODIHR video: Addressing Antisemitism Through Education
www.ester.rs
© Terraforming 2016 – 2020
www.terraforming.org
