Picturing the Unimaginable

Inspired by the graphic novel Picturing the Unimaginable, Dr. Tatia Gruenbaum met with Bas Kortholt (Camp Westerbork). Bas was coordinating the graphic novel and its travelling exhibition and was interested in a university course pilot project.

Supported by Prof. Dr Carmen Becker, Tatia, together with Jan Rauhut and Merle Bierman, developed a hybrid (elective) course with an online-only option for students residing abroad. The course was designed for a mixed-discipline cohort and focused on exploring the contribution visual children’s Holocaust literature (picturebooks and graphic novels) could make to supporting GCED and promoting the UNCRC. It also included a collaborative element with (ITESS) student teachers at NHS Stenden (NL) and their teacher educator, Heike Tattje, during the final graphic-novel-based workshop days.

The course was well attended and received. And so, it will continue to run in 25/26, thus contributing to the need for this virtual exhibition project.

To promote the course 'Picturing the Unimaginable: empower critical thinking and inspire unity and hope', which ran from April to July 2025 for the first time, we put up posters throughout the whole campus. It was a great success!

Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik der Technischen Universität Braunschweig

• Dr. Tatia Gruenbaum | tatia.gruenbaum(at)tu-braunschweig.de
• Prof. Dr. Carmen Becker | c.becker(at)tu-braunschweig.de
• Merle Biermann | merle.biermann(at)tu-braunschweig.de
• Jan Rauhut | j.rauhut(at)tu-braunschweig.de 
• Le Thuc Anh Mai | l.mai(at)tu-braunschweig.de
   

Camp Westerbork Memorial Centre

• Bas Kortholt | bas(at)kampwesterbork.nl
   

The NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies 

• Prof. Dr. Kees Ribbens | k.ribbens(at)niod.knaw.nl

From April to July 2025, the travelling exhibition of the graphic novel Picturing the Unimaginable was displayed at TU Braunschweig. This exhibition was on loan from Camp Westerbork to support a newly designed online course based on this very same graphic novel, designed and taught by Dr. Tatia Gruenbaum for the Institute for English and American Studies.

Before the travelling exhibition was packed up and moved to Ladelund Concentration Camp & Memorial (Germany), Le Thuc Anh Mai and Jan Rauhut created a virtual edition of the exhibition to ensure that graphic novel readers and future course participants could access the displayed materials.

Feel free to enter the virtual exhibition here: 

PICTURING THE UNIMAGINABLE - The Virtual Exhibition Project

When we, Jan and I (Thuci), were presented with the idea of creating a virtual edition of the Picturing the Unimaginable travelling exhibition, we were both enthusiastic. We are both MA students in Education, attached to the Institute for English and American Studies (TU Braunschweig). Jan is majoring in History and worked closely together with Dr. Gruenbaum to develop the PtU course, while my major is in Art Education and Fine Arts.

To begin this project, we collected materials by photographing and filming the displays and reviewing the audio files. After experimenting with different ways to combine visuals and text, we finally decided to use a ‘Google Street View’ approach to enter the exhibition. This approach seemed to offer an accessible visitor experience and came closest to the atmosphere of the original physical exhibition.

For those who wish to explore further, feel free to 'Enter the Exhibition'! 

Follow along as we set up the exhibition at TU Braunschweig's Campus Nord!

More insights from Bas Kortholt, historian and researcher at Camp Westerbork Memorial Centre!