digital guide

The exhibition "Drawing and Responsibility" honours the extensive and impressively versatile work of Alexandra Kardinal and Volker Schlecht, who under the joint name "Drushba Pankow" have left clear traces in the German as well as international press and publishing landscape. One focus of the exhibition is on individual scenes from the life story of the Pallottine Father Richard Henkes.

Alexandra Kardinar & Volker Schlecht in Montabaur

A comic about Richard Henkes' life in Dachau concentration camp? And Richard Henkes as a silent comic hero? Is such a thing possible? Comics have long since grown out of their infancy and offer their readership a variety of forms of representation. Last but not least, William Erwin Eisner, a US-American cartoonist, decisively coined the term graphic novel with his 1978 book "A Contract with God". The graphic novel creates something new: it combines the complexity of storytelling with images to create an illustrated narrative with a complex plot. The emancipation of the comic has led to the treatment of socially relevant events and the documentation of historical material in addition to entertaining topics. Art Spiegelman's 1970 work "Maus" marks this gradual transition towards the documentary comic.

Der moderne Comic erweitert sein Konzept des comic journalism hin zum comic-doc, der Graphic Documentary.
In recent years, comics have increasingly become a proven genre of documentation that contributes to historical and socio-political memory work.
The life stories and circumstances of real human characters take the place of the usual heroic and fantastic comic figures. And perhaps it is precisely the comic, through its specificity of image dominance and text combination, that opens up a vivid and documentary mediation in a special way. The sequential and information-dense drawings, the combination of detailed view, synthesis and totality as well as the strong narrative information content create a new access to literature and history.

The illustrator duo Volker Schlecht and Alexandra Kardinar, who appear under the artist name "Drushba Pankow", have prepared the life story of Father Richard Henkes as a graphic documentary. Social and political aspects play an essential role in the works of the history-loving artists. Volker Schlecht developed the storyboard for the graphic documentary and Alexandra Kardinar the colouring concept. The ingenious frame story, the focussed narrative strategy, the expressive drawing style and the restrained use of colour, the orientation towards historical facts and the inclusion of traditional sources result in a strongly documentary illustration that does not correspond to the usual market mainstream in terms of content and design. The Graphic Documentary undoubtedly shows the documentary claim, especially since Volker Schlecht is not a newcomer in this field and has already translated pure documentary material visually with animated films - Animated Documentary. On two double-page spreads in the appendix of the Graphic Documentary, Volker Schlecht details his intensive and meticulous research. Anyone who assumes that this is merely a list of sources in the form of literature used and web links will be amazed at the detailed presentation of the basic contemporary historical facts on the individual pages of the documentary: Explanations of the fictional frame story with a view to the non-fictional events surrounding Richard Henkes, notes on Richard Henkes' biography, references to ranks in the Wehrmacht or the appearance of prisoners' clothing, explanations of the mistreatment and living conditions in Dachau concentration camp, quotations from contemporary witnesses ... The documentary claim was of central importance to Volker Schlecht: "I wanted to interpret as little as possible of my personal fiction into the story in order not to devalue the whole thing. " The result of this intensive research and creative implementation also convinced the jury of the European Design Award 2020, as the graphic documentary "Und wenn die Wahrheit mich vernichtet" (And when the truth destroys me) took third place in the Book & Editorial Illustration category.

The illustrator duo Volker Schlecht and Alexandra Kardinar, who appear under the artist name "Drushba Pankow", have prepared the life story of Father Richard Henkes as a graphic documentary. Social and political aspects play an essential role in the works of the history-loving artists. Volker Schlecht developed the storyboard for the graphic documentary and Alexandra Kardinar the colouring concept. The ingenious frame story, the focussed narrative strategy, the expressive drawing style and the restrained use of colour, the orientation towards historical facts and the inclusion of traditional sources result in a strongly documentary illustration that does not correspond to the usual market mainstream in terms of content and design. The Graphic Documentary undoubtedly shows the documentary claim, especially since Volker Schlecht is not a newcomer in this field and has already translated pure documentary material visually with animated films - Animated Documentary. On two double-page spreads in the appendix of the Graphic Documentary, Volker Schlecht details his intensive and meticulous research. Anyone who assumes that this is merely a list of sources in the form of literature used and web links will be amazed at the detailed presentation of the basic contemporary historical facts on the individual pages of the documentary: Explanations of the fictional frame story with a view to the non-fictional events surrounding Richard Henkes, notes on Richard Henkes' biography, references to ranks in the Wehrmacht or the appearance of prisoners' clothing, explanations of the mistreatment and living conditions in Dachau concentration camp, quotations from contemporary witnesses ... The documentary claim was of central importance to Volker Schlecht: "I wanted to interpret as little as possible of my personal fiction into the story in order not to devalue the whole thing. " The result of this intensive research and creative implementation also convinced the jury of the European Design Award 2020, as the graphic documentary "Und wenn die Wahrheit mich vernichtet" (And when the truth destroys me) took third place in the Book & Editorial Illustration category.

Decisive for the successful realisation is the well thought-out picture-text combination. Speech bubbles, narrative text, historical information and letter excerpts from Richard Henkes form a narrative symbiosis with the drawings and the composition of the panels. The dialogues are penned by Volker Schlecht, who brings the complex life story of the Pallottine Father to the reader in a focused way. Two aspects of Richard Henkes' biography that are essential to the plot play a central role: What events lead to his arrest and what is the motivation for his voluntary service in the sealed-off block of typhus patients? The letter quotations in particular then come into focus. They reveal a humanly sympathetic Richard Henkes, moved by inner struggles and determined. Probably for this reason, Drushba Pankow decided not only to include original quotations in various places, but to place them prominently on two double pages: in the correspondence with Father Kentenich and from the time in the concentration camp. Both double pages are interdependent, because during his time of crisis in the seminary, Henkes realised very early on "that I can't do anything; but there is one thing I can do: sacrifice myself for others". This conscious decision to be a sacrificial priest is reflected in the letter quotations from Dachau, although the unreal circumstances of life are also named. Thus, the script of the complex life story is designed from the beginning towards the conscious decision to become a sacrificial priest.

Here, the pictorial level takes on a special significance, because the readers view the events through the eyes of the artist, who shows us his image, his point of view and his details of the action depicted by the fictional narrator and Henkes. Thus the reader becomes a silent witness to the events. Volker Schlecht succeeds with impressive seriousness in investigating the question of what led to the arrest of Richard Henkes and motivated him to follow his words to the last consequence.

In view of the dramatic plot, the viewer looks in vain for bright colours like in the graphic novel "Fräulein von Scuderie" by E.T.A Hoffmann, designed by Drushba Pankow - and rightly so. The documentary claim and the subject matter demand a reduction and lead one to assume sober black-and-white drawings. Instead, the colouring is restrained, almost restrained. At the same time, the colouring seems to be cast from one mould: slight nuances in the colour gradations concentrate the view on the essentials and it is more difficult to distance oneself from the events. The confrontation with the scenery appears more plastic and real. The colour does not always fill every square centimetre of the panels. Gaps remain that expose the bare framework of the drawing and may appear unfinished at first glance. At the same time, it is precisely these coloured "voids" that create the impression that the viewer is looking over the draughtsman's shoulder as he works and is thus drawn directly into the action.

That the draughtsman is also the author - or vice versa - does not necessarily have to be the case. Volker Schlecht, in collaboration with Alexandra Kardinar, shows that it is possible to write a script with a documentary character for a complex non-fictional story and at the same time create drawings that convey a high degree of authenticity.

Self-sacrifice for one's neighbour or even the most distant is one of the most extraordinary things of which humans are capable. Instead of being primarily concerned with the preservation and transmission of one's own genes, as a naturalistic view of the world expects, human beings can decide against the purposes of nature. Freedom in its highest form is the freedom of the victim, said François Mitterrand in memory of a friend who, after liberation from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, did not go home the first way but stayed to nurse fellow prisoners who had fallen ill, contracted typhus in the process and died. Most famous is Maximilian Kolbe, who went into the hunger bunker in Auschwitz as a representative of a family father. Many, very many people are unknown who threw themselves protectively in front of others or devoted themselves to caring for the sick despite the danger of infection.

Many of these helpers lost their own lives in the Corona pandemic, for example. In Italy alone, at least 204 Catholic diocesan priests have died as a result of a Corona infection. Many of the victims had contracted the disease while carrying out their pastoral duties. And according to WHO estimates, 115,000 caregivers have died of corona worldwide. Everyday saints who have helped to help people and contain the pandemic with their selfless service.

from left: Director of the Pilgrimage Centre, Rev Werner Demmel, Bishop Dr Georg Bätzing, Secretary General of the German Bishops' Conference, Dr Beate Gilles, Ambassador of the German Mission to the Holy See, Dr Bernhard Kotsch. Photo: DBK/Elpers

The beatification of Richard Henkes, a Pallottine priest from the Westerwald, in Limburg Cathedral in 2019 may also be understood as a tribute to all those who remained unknown. Henkes, who had been deported to the Dachau concentration camp for preaching critical of the regime, voluntarily had himself locked up in Block 17 to nurse fellow prisoners suffering from typhus. He eventually infected himself and died in Dachau on 22 February 1945. Among the sick people he cared for were many Czechs, to whom he felt a special bond, because he had been a pastor in what is now the diocese of Ostrava-Opava on the north-eastern border of the Czech Republic before his deportation. He was in contact with the Czech priest Josef Beran, who was also imprisoned in Dachau and later became Cardinal of Prague.

An exhibition entitled "And if the truth destroys me", which opened on 17 October 2022 at the German Pilgrim Centre in Rome, therefore honoured Father Henkes, who is also revered in the Catholic Church in the Czech Republic, as a martyr of charity and German-Czech friendship. On display in large format were scenes from a multi-award-winning graphic documentary, i.e. a picture story, by Berlin-based illustrator Volker Schlecht and his Hamburg colleague Alexandra Kardinar, who together operate under the label "DrushbaPankow", on the life of Richard Henkes, which is now also available in Czech translation.

Schoolgirls studying the exhibition documents. Photo: Cornelia Steinfeld

The esteem in which Henkes is held beyond his home diocese was evident from the guests and laudators who attended the vernissage prepared by curator Martin Ramb for the Diocese of Limburg: among others, the Ambassadors of the Czech Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany to the Holy See, Václav Kolaja and Dr Bernhard Kotsch.

The pupils from the Johannes-Gymnasium in Lahnstein am Rhein and the Catholic Gymnasium Bernhardinum in Fürstenwalde from the diocese of Berlin, who had travelled to the event with their teachers, had the opportunity to meet Volker Schlecht, the illustrator and copywriter, who was present as the guest of honour, in person.

from left: Nikola Harsch, Father Alexander Holzbach SAC, Martin W. Ramb, Andreas Thelen-Eiselen, Volker Schlecht, Photo: Cornelia Steinfeld

from left: Czech Ambassador to the Holy See, Václav Kolaja and Father Alexander Holzbach SAC. Photo: Cornelia Steinfeld

And the project of the Diocese of Limburg is now also bearing fruit in the Czech Republic. Dr Tomáš Cyril Havel from the University of South Bohemia in ?eské Bud?jovice and religious educator Eva Muronova also attended the opening. Dr Havel translated the graphic documentary into Czech and arranged for its publication. Together with Eva Muronova, he will take care of its use in catechesis and religious education.

Bishop Dr Georg Bätzing also visited the exhibition during the Ad Liminia visit of the German bishops in Rome together with the German Ambassador to the Holy See, Dr Bernhard Kotsch