01. Football in Novi Sad – the initial idea of a graphic novel
The Historical Archives of the City of Novi Sad and Terraforming have had an excellent partnership for a number of years. This time, Miško and Petar were discussing the idea of creating educational material about the Novi Sad Raid.
During the conversation in Petar’s office, Miško noticed a pair of old football boots in a glass display box. Petar explained that these were authentic boots from the 1930s. Footballers from the Vojvodina Sports Club used to wear such boots at the time.
Being a historian and also a big football fan, Petar was happy to tell stories about the pre-war history of the two football clubs that shared the same stadium in Novi Sad: the Serbian “Vojvodina” and the Jewish club “Makabi1”.
This prompted Miško to propose: “Telling a story about football in Novi Sad could provide an interesting and accessible way to depict the pre-war life in the city, its citizens, the occupation, and the Novi Sad Raid itself!”
And that is how a new idea for an educational graphic novel was conceived.
The victims of the Novi Sad Raid were predominantly Serbs and Jews. Jews are a minority in Serbia. During the Holocaust, just as in the rest of Europe, the Jewish community of Novi Sad was decimated. Antisemitism is still present in every European society and Jews continue to be subjected to prejudice, discrimination and hate speech. While it is our human and moral responsibility to commemorate all victims, it is particularly important to protect minorities and disadvantaged groups. This is why we decided to put special focus in the novel on the life and persecution of Jews.
There was a great deal of work to be done. Petar began writing a piece about pre-war Novi Sad, which would serve as the introduction to the novel. Miško called a meeting of the Terraforming team.
