“But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust” is a telling of the Holocaust in graphic novel form.

“But I Live” is nominated for a 2023 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award for best reality based work. The Eisner is like the Oscar for comic books.

“’But I Live’ is a collection of stories by Emmie Arbel, Nico and Rolf Kamp and David Schaffer, four Holocaust survivors, and Miriam Libicki, Gilad Seliktar and Barbara Yelin, three graphic artists,” according to New Jewish Press, the book’s publisher. “Each novella is a co-creation between a survivor and graphic artist and depicts the experiences of the four child-witnesses in various visual styles, each unique to the different artist. Together, this book aims to teach the reader about racism, antisemitism, human rights and social justice using the graphic novel format that is so appealing to younger readers.”

The combination of stories and artwork is powerful and chilling.

“But I Live” has also won a Canadian Jewish Literary Award for biography and PROSE Awards in two categories, biography and autobiography, and nonfiction graphic novels, according to the publisher.

It is not the first award-winning graphic novel based on actual Holocaust accounts.

Art Spiegelman’s “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale” tells the story of his father but with mice as the Jewish people while cats and pigs are Nazis and Nazi collaborators. The narrative is based on Spiegelman’s interviews with his father.

“Maus” won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. It was the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer.